Less energy-intensive alternative separations: creating a roadmap to accelerate industrial adoption

Separation processes account for over 35% of energy used in chemical manufacturing. To advance the availability of less energy-intensive separations for industrial adoption, the Chemical Manufacturers Roundtable at the ACS Green Chemistry Institute (R) in partnership with AIChE sought a NIST AMTech planning grant to collaboratively create an innovation roadmap. Since receiving the award in May 2015, the collaboration has expanded to include researchers from universities and national labs, suppliers of commercial separations equipment, and a growing list of interested manufacturers and sustainability leaders. Successful roadmap development depends on the involvement of a wide range of chemical science and engineering innovators.