SAVENGY TECHNOLOGIES LLC — Department of Energy SBIR Phase I: C55-14a

Description

C55-14a-270735In this program, Savengy Technologies., LLC and its partners will develop an energy efficient, low-cost device for oxygen separation. This device (oxygen generator) is designed for small scale oxygen-blown gasifiers. The proposed system can achieve low energy consumption requirements. We need to improve the purity of pressure swing adsorption (PSA) generated oxygen >98%. It is well-known that current PSA system oxygen concentration is limited to 95%. Currently used PSA system with zeolite adsorbent can be improved. The microstructure of the adsorbent surface affects oxygen purity. Our improvement on PSA oxygen generator is mainly based on energy recovery, optimized bed adsorbent design and treatment process. Our work includes characterizing the adsorption capacity, adsorption force and adsorption speed of the adsorbent for nitrogen gases variation with the pressure. When the adsorbent bed is depressurized, these adsorbent components will be desorbed, regenerating the adsorbent. These processes are completed on our re-designed multi-layer adsorbents bed to maximize oxygen production and to accelerate adsorbents recovery. We augment the separation operations by designing the optimal treatment process including automated control of adsorption, desorption, flushing, other processes to improve oxygen purity and productivity. Physics-based models will be developed to analyze our technology, and a lab-scale small prototype will be built to confirm the feasibility during the Phase I. This proposed project is to develop new compact portable device to minimize the energy consumption of PSA oxygen generation. We will develop a technology that produces >98% oxygen that: 1) Save 90% of the system energy. 2) Scalable from producing up to 1,000 m3 per day >98% oxygen to meet the need of small oxygen-blown gasifiers. In Phase II and beyond, we will collaborate with our partners to design and build for a 10,000 m3/day unit, with further investigations into a Phase III 100,000 m3 /day facility.