The key objective of this proposed work is to demonstrate the technical feasibility and energy and cost savings of the proposed non-evaporative dehydration process utilizing an enhanced supercritical drying process coupled with MPT ceramic membrane technology. The unique process combines two technical improvements for supercritical CO2 (scCO2) based drying of wet substrates that together (i) dramatically increase water loading uptake in scCO2 and (ii) significantly reduce the scCO2 repressurization cost on regeneration prior to recycle. Preliminary economic estimates suggest as much as an order of magnitude reduction in energy cost can be achieved due to both sensible and latent heat savings. Further, the higher water loadings coupled with reduced scCO2 regeneration penalty yield a smaller package size relative to traditional supercritical fluid drying approaches and hence reduced capital cost. Finally, GHG and other hazardous emissions consistent with traditional high temperature evaporative drying are dramatically reduced and substrate drying damage is minimized. Combining these various direct and indirect cost savings, the proposed approach represents a potentially new paradigm in wet substrate drying, applicable to tens of thousands of products in a wide array of industries to displace the conventional process that consumes over 10 Quad per year, worldwide. In this proposed research effort, our program will consist of laboratory verification of the process concept, short to medium term process performance stability, and development of a process model. A technoeconomic analysis will be performed based upon the results from these activities for several targeted wet substrates. By the conclusion of this program, it is expected that the process proof of concept (technical and economic) will have been established, so that pilot field scale testing can be conducted at selected end user sites during the next phase of the process commercialization.
