Refining, whether oil or natural gases, can be a costly process because of the need to remove impurities found when extracting them from the ground. Currently expensive materials are used to handle this process. Texas A&M engineering professors Jaime C. Grunlan and Benjamin A. Wilhite have developed a completely new “game-changing” gas separation membrane that will make the process of extracting these impurities easier, and more importantly, less expensive. Their work was published recently in the journal Advanced Materials with the title “Highly size-selective ionically crosslinked multilayer polymer films for light gas separation.” They have also filed a patent for this technology due to its commercial potential. “We use a simple polymer-based film to remove the impurities and it has the promise of a less expensive method for producing purer oil,” said Wilhite, associate professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering. “It is all polymer and we are able to get performances comparable to really expensive materials such as mixed matrix membranes and zeolites.” “The technology is separating gases,” added Grunlan, associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. “Gas where they mine it is impure and contains different poison gases you don’t want. If you run gas through this
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