Researchers at KAIST in South Korea and Georgia Tech in the US have shown that crude oil can be separated at room temperature with an inexpensive membrane, instead of being boiled. The results were published in Nature.
Refineries have relied on distillation for more than a century, heating oil above 350°C to split it into fractions. Worldwide this uses about 1,100 terawatt-hours a year, roughly what 130 large nuclear power plants produce.
Earlier membrane designs needed very thin, costly coatings that tended to develop flaws at industrial scale. The team instead used a bare membrane made of polyacrylonitrile, a cheap and stable plastic, and found that the way it clogs actually helps it separate molecules.
Because oil also feeds plastics, packaging and clothing, a less energy-hungry process could lower both costs and emissions across many products.
