[nanoPost] Nano enabled thermal fluids; Molecular separation technology for reduced energy cons

Company The Netherlands

1) Waste heat technology: nano enabled thermal fluids: optimisation of emulsification of PCM materials and emulsion stability by tailoring the surfactant (nanolayer). Large amounts of industrial waste heat (world wide 8.600 PJ) is emitted to the environment. If part of this heat could be transported cheap, over long distances at a desired temperature level to other industrial areas or cities, a significant contribution to CO2 emission and energy reduction could be made.

Increasing the thermal capacity of fluids and fixing the temperature could be envisaged using micro (or nano) emulsions or microencapsulated fluids and phase change materials. Emulsions stabilisers and encapsulation materials are on the nanoscale and should be able to withstand higher temperatures, mechanical load due to pumping etc.

2) Molecular separation technology: nanoparticulate sols for membrane production: tailoring for isomer separation (enanti-o, ane-ene, n-branched etc). Within the same target of reducing world energy consumption membrane separations can contribute to really significant energy savings, e.g. as an alternative to destillation.

A lot of effort is put into dewatering of organic fluids. On a somewhat higher level of difficulty and daring, close boiling point separations and enanti-omer/isomer separations demand for tailoring of the membrane properties on a molecular level.