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TECHNOLOGY LICENSING OPPORTUNITY

Solvent-Driven Dehydration

An energy-efficient dewatering process for wet solids

Opportunity: Idaho National Laboratory (INL), managed and operated by Battelle Energy Alliance, LLC (BEA), is offering the opportunity to enter into a license or collaborative research agreement to commercialize this process for extracting liquids from solid materials. This technology transfer opportunity is part of a dedicated effort to convert government-funded research into job opportunities, businesses, and, ultimately, an improved way of life for the American people.

Overview: Standard industrial techniques for drying solids at scale are energy-intensive and can induce mechanical damage to solid products. Alternative methods that rely on water dissolution into solvents uses solvent which are difficult to fully recover and require large volumes of solvents and may not be suitable for wet solids containing complex aqueous solutions. A new solvent-driven pore displacement process developed by researchers at INL utilizes a minimal solvent volume to displace liquids contained in pores and interstitial spaces within wet solids. The process is an energy- and reagent-efficient initial dewatering process for wet solids in many applications.

Description: This process advances prior solvent-driven water extraction technologies by displacing liquid from pores and interstitial space within wet solids. While previously demonstrated solvent drying of wet solids requires a mass ratio of solvent: water extracted of 13-25:1, this method approaches a mass ratio of solvent: water displaced of 1:1 or less, thus providing a path for energy-efficient and reagent-efficient dewatering of wet solids.

Benefits:

• Order of magnitude reduction of energy requirements for initial drying of solids compared to thermal drying processes.


• Reduction of solvent required compared to other solvent-driven methods.


• Possibility to ameliorate cracking damage that occurs in conventional and solvent-driven drying methods.


• Allows the removal of water-soluble and colloidally suspended materials (e.g., ash and silica) in the aqueous phase.

Applications:

• Industrial wet solid drying


• Biomass treatment


• Food and beverage industry


• Mineral extraction

Development Status: TRL 5. The system has been validated at laboratory scale in a relevant environment.

IP Status: Provisional Patent Application No. 63/379,268, “Methods of Removing Water from a Solid Porous Material via Solvent-Driven Pore Displacement,” BEA Docket No. BA-1363.

INL seeks to license the above intellectual property to a company with a demonstrated ability to bring such inventions to the market. Exclusive rights in defined fields of use may be available. Added value is placed on relationships with small businesses, start-up companies, and general entrepreneurship opportunities.

Please visit Technology Deployment’s website at https://inl.gov/inl-initiatives/technology-deployment for more information on working with INL and the industrial partnering and technology transfer process.

Companies interested in learning more about this licensing opportunity should contact Andrew Rankin at td@inl.gov.

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