Porous polyacrylonitrile membranes—typically used as non-selective support layers—can be used to achieve effective molecular refining of crude oil at steady state, enabling substantial reductions in energy consumption, cooling water, and CO2 emissions compared with distillation processes.
Data availability
All data supporting the findings of this study are available within the paper and its Supplementary Information. Source data are provided with this paper. The data are also available on Figshare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.32164371.
ReferencesThompson, K. A. et al. N-Aryl–linked spirocyclic polymers for membrane separations of complex hydrocarbon mixtures. Science 369, 310–315 (2020).Article
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