Separation technologies; An opportunity for energy savings

The chemical process industries (CPI), including the petroleum and chemical industries, consume the energy equivalent of about three million barrels of crude oil per day - this translates to 27% of industrial energy consumption in the U.S. (excluding raw materials). This paper discusses separation processes which recover and purify products account for over 40% of CPI energy demand. Separation processes include removal of impurities from raw materials, of products and by-products from reactor crude, and of containments from water and air effluents. Examples of such separation processes include absorption, adsorption, ion exchange, chromatography, crystallization, distillation, drying, electrodialysis, electrolytic processes, evaporation, extraction, filtration, flotation, membranes, and stripping. Because distillation is the most widely used separation process, we will focus on it and its alternatives, adsorption, and membrane processes.