Iranian Company Discovers Way to Measure Membranes in Oil, Petrochemical Industries

According to a report by Iran’s Headquarters for Nanotechnology Development, one of the research-industrial companies has succeeded in introducing membrane performance measurement device known as the MGSPS to the market the .

The device can play an important role in the field of nanotechnology. Nanotechnology has enabled the device to enjoy the ability of measuring membrane performance.  

"Detection of large holes and cracks in the structure of the microporous membrane", "Possibility of performing membrane separation at different temperatures and pressures", "Possibility of membrane separation and Permporometry" and "Measuring the distribution of holes on the membrane surface" are among the capabilities of the device, the report added.

Today, the membrane industry is one of the growing and new industries in the field of gas separation in various sectors of the oil, petrochemical and gas industries. Therefore, development of methods to measure the produced membranes can be of great importance. These devices should be compatible with all types of gas analysis devices such as gas chromatography.

The general mechanism of these devices is that at first the desired membrane is placed in the device, then a certain percentage of gases are mixed and directed towards the membrane at a certain flow rate and pressure. Part of the gas mixture passes through the membrane and the other part does not pass. These two outflows are called Permeate and Retentate, respectively. The exhaust gas flow of the device enters a secondary analysis device to determine the percentage composition of the exhaust gases. The secondary analysis device can be gas chromatography or the other analysis device. By determining the percentage of feed gas and the percentage of output gases, the capacity of the membrane in gas separation is determined.

These devices also have Permporometry, meaning that by combining two flows of inert gas, one of which passes through a saturator, a certain percentage of the solvent passes through the membrane up to about 2% (equivalent to pore sizes below 2 nanometer or nm). To change the partial pressure of the solvent and increase it (equivalent to larger hole values), it is enough to change the ratio of these two flows. Permeate flow rate changes with the partial pressure of the solvent and using the Kelvin equation, the size distribution of the pores of the surface layer of the membrane is calculated.

This company, which was formed through the efforts of three professors at the University of Tehran (UT), was founded in 2000 at the UT Pardis Science and Technology Park. In the company, with the cooperation of a large number of graduates and master's and doctoral students, some scientific-university research findings have reached the production stage, among which one can mention the production of toxic gas sensors, oxygen sensors, laboratory analysis and stratification devices.

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