Taking the heat off distillation

Heating a liquid until it evaporates is one of the most fundamental ways to separate chemical mixtures. Just turn on the heat and wait. On the industrial scale, the problem is not so much the wait, but the heat. The chemical industry requires a lot of it to separate chemical compounds using distillations—as much as 15% of the U.S.’s energy consumption, according to an Oak Ridge National Laboratory report. Chemical manufacturers are more cognizant than ever of the need to cut energy use and prevent pollution. It’s one part green chemistry and sustainability. But another part is keeping an eye on the company bottom line, because with commodity chemicals, price is important and saving every penny in production counts. Even so, chemical companies find that it’s tough to adopt alternatives to large-scale distillation that don’t rely on heating. That’s because distillation is a dependable, well-understood method that works, and replacing