Technology
None of
the existing water treatment films can be applied to the treatment of organic
solvent because their polymers are vulnerable to acid, alkali, and heat. Ceramics
and carbon film resistant to organic solvent are available, but neither of them
can treat organic solvent at high speed. National Institute for MaterialsScience developed a filter that can filter organic solvent like oil and solventmedium. The filter has numerous holes, each of which is about 1 nanometer in
diameter, and can treat organic solvent at about 1,000 times faster than the
off-the-shelf filters for organic solvent. The newly developed filter is a 35-nanometer-thick
diamond-like carbon film using porous alumina film as substrate, and it has numerous
1-nanometer diameter holes through which organic solvent runs.
The film
has about one seventh of diamond in strength. It exhibited a permeability rate
of 239 liters per hour and per bar for each square meter to filter depressurized
hexane. It succeeded in eliminating more than 94% of impurities, though how
much impurities can be eliminated depends on the molecular size. It has
pressure resistance of up to 20 atmospheric pressures. The new film can be
applied to the production of ultralow-sulfur diesel fuel (ULSD) and treatment
of effluent created in the process to extract oil from oil sand. The research members
plan to put the new film into practical use by replacing the porous alumina
substrate with a carbon fiber sheet. The research results will be put on the
January 27 issue of the American science magazine Science.
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