Posted on 06/05/2025 5:57:05 AM PDT by Red Badger
Wonder if this tech could be applied to distilling spirits. Ethanol and methanol are different sizes, and would be much safer than boiling the mash, now that home distilling has been approved I read somewhere.
A demonstration with Naptha, Kerosene and Diesel is light years away from actual crude oil. A lot of the stuff is just downright nasty including all manner of metals and other junk. I can’t imagine pushing some of the stuff through a screen door let alone a membrane sieve. Tankers for Middle East Oil have to be cleaned out or they gain weight from all the salt and other solids that fall out of the oil while being transported as just one example of all the junk that is in crude oil.
Good luck. The only half credible and hopeful part of this is that Exxon sponsored the research.
Crude oil is a whole lot different than salt water filtration to fresh water.
membranes won’t help with the most important function in petroleum refineries, namely catalytic cracking of large-molecule petroleum components into lighter, more useful substances such as benzene and many others ...
Correct, but they might be able to lower the energy requirements to do the cracking of the larger molecules................
Research like this will probably be against the law after Trump leaves office.
Very interesting article. Thanks for posting.
I knew that modern desalination uses a filter system.
However, I had no idea how it worked, and the atomic level filter solution is fascinating.
I wonder if it would work as an artificial kidney?............
it’ll be nice if it’s scalable to industrial manufacture and and operation of square miles worth of said membranes ...
Another interesting idea!
Unfortunately - you still need 100% of your blood filtered, so, no clear way out of dialysis 3-5 times per week.
It would be easier to mix the oil with vinegar as the oil separates....
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.