Funding boost for green filtration project
January 1st 2008
A new 'green' technology company that aims to provide the compressed air
industry with more energy efficient ways of reducing its carbon footprint has
been awarded a grant of almost £250K from the Carbon Trust's Applied
Research Scheme
The £250,000 funding will enable
recently established company Nanoporous
Solutions (n-psl) to develop
and – in the future – commercialise
ground-breaking technology, which uses a
new type of regenerative adsorbent hollow
fibre. Originally developed by scientists at
the University of Bath, the fibre will have its
main use in compressed air treatment
(CAT) systems where it has the potential to
lower energy consumption by up to half
that used by current technology. It is
estimated that this could translate into
minimum accumulated savings of over
4million tonnes of CO2 by the year 2050.1
Neil McPherson, business development
director for Nano-porous Solutions, is
confident that the new technology will have
a major beneficial effect on the environment.
"Compressed air generation accounts for
10% of the total electricity used by UK
industry2. Up to 20% of this energy is taken
up by air treatment systems, which remove
contaminants in compressed air – e.g.
water, oil and particulates – before use.
"Given that there are around 85,000 air
compressors currently used in
manufacturing processes today, even if
only a fraction of these were to convert to
the new technology, the energy savings
would be enormous," he said.
Nano-porous Solutions has been set up
as a new company to develop this
technology and make it commercially
available. In the first instance, this will include
pilot scale manufacture of the fibre to confirm
that the technology is transferable, and the
facilities to create products that can then be
fully tested and evaluated.
After that, the company – based in
Gateshead – plans to move into
commercial-scale manufacturing that will
make the product readily available to a
world-wide market. n-psl already has a
strong grounding within the industry
having been set up by Colin Billiet, former
chief executive of North-East filtration giant
domnick hunter Group, which became the
world leader in compressed air treatment
under his leadership. The new company
expects to employ up to 20 people within
the next 18 months.
"The applications for the nano-porous
adsorbent hollow fibres are numerous and
our work is already attracting a huge
amount of interest from many sectors,
including the compressed air industry,"
said Neil McPherson. "Key markets that
will benefit from the new technology
include the pharmaceutical, health care,
environmental, volatile organic
compounds recovery/recycle, life support,
medical, and food & beverage sectors."
Garry Staunton, technology director at
the Carbon Trust, said: "Improving the
efficiency of industrial plant and processes
is vital in the UK's move to a low carbon
economy. Compressed air is a significant
consumer of energy in industry and so
developing more efficient technology in this
area can provide substantial carbon
savings. We are pleased to be supporting
the innovative approach to treating
compressed air being developed by n-psl."
The technology
Compressed air is widely used
throughout manufacturing industries as a
safe and reliable source of energy.
However, the quality of the compressed
air delivered by the compressor is
unsuitable for industrial use without
treatment to improve its purity. Treating
the compressed air generally involves
filtering it, to remove dust, oil and water.
One method for separating out these
different components uses adsorption, a
process whereby specific molecules (the
adsorbate) adhere to the surface of a highly
porous solid (the adsorbent) by electrostatic
and molecular forces. The adsorbent is
normally made into granules or beads,
which are used to form packed beds
through which the adsorbate is passed and
the process of adsorption can take place.
The new technology uses the same base
adsorbent material but is extruded into
nano-porous adsorbent hollow (tubular)
fibres, which can be single or multi layered
depending on the application. It is highly
porous and provides a lower resistance for
the transport of the adsorbate, and a much
higher surface area to volume ratio (around
3-5 times more), allowing the adsorption
process to be far more effective. The result
of this is a much more efficient filter with
subsequent lower energy losses.
Research shows that the adsorption
performance of the multi layer hollow fibres
is far better than that of an equivalent
packed bed of spherical zeolite/carbon
adsorbents with around one hundredth of
the pressure drop – one of the main causes
of energy use in air treatment systems. This
allows the adsorption units to be installed in
ductwork or in limited space without the
need for additional gas compression.
The hollow fibre structure also
overcomes some of the disadvantages
commonly associated with granular or
spherical adsorbent materials, such as the
risk of settlement, attrition, channelling, bypass,
hot-spots and the deterioration of
adsorption performance due to poor heat
loss from the bed and the by-pass of the
gas being processed.
A further advantage of the hollow fibre is
that it enables faster regeneration times,
which could reduce the length of the
heating/cooling cycle from several hours
to a matter of minutes. Another energy
saving benefit to the new technology is
that due to the compact nature of the new
design, smaller compressor units are
required – meaning less power is needed.
The new hollow fibre technology can be
applied to the recovery and removal of
many types of gases (including VOC, O2
and CO2), liquids and particles and is
suitable for high temperature applications
and use in harsh environments.
Its layering structure also means that it
can be configured according to the
components that need separating and the
specific application. Examples of potential
uses are virus filters for masks, blood
oxygenators, aircraft cabin air purifiers,
petrol vapour recovery systems and VOC
removal from car exhausts.
1 Figure based on market penetration
estimation and probability of success for
each product category.
2 EU 'Save' report published by
Ademe/Fraunhofer ISI/DOC.CE | 
