WISE Researcher Publishes Article Supporting Next-Generation Refrigerant Recovery Technologies

Yuniva Mendoza-Apodaca, a researcher with the Shiflett Research Group at the Wonderful Institute for Sustainable Engineering (WISE), has published a new article in Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research focused on improving how refrigerants—critical to air conditioning and cooling systems—can be separated and reused more efficiently, supporting global efforts to reduce environmental impact.

Highlights 

• Membrane technology provides an energy-efficient alternative to traditional separation methods.
  It enables refrigerant separation without the high energy demand associated with distillation processes.
• This approach improves the recovery and reuse of high-impact refrigerants.
  It supports efforts to reduce emissions and meet evolving environmental regulations.
• The research addresses challenges associated with difficult-to-separate refrigerant mixtures.
  It offers a viable pathway for separating azeotropic and near-azeotropic hydrofluorocarbon systems.

The publication, “Membrane Technology for Hydrofluorocarbon Refrigerant Separation,” explores new approaches to handling refrigerant mixtures that are traditionally difficult to separate. These mixtures are widely used in cooling systems but can contribute to climate change if not properly recovered and recycled. By developing improved separation methods, this research helps make cooling technologies more sustainable and cost-effective.

The review investigates membrane-based separation processes for hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerant mixtures, which are often azeotropic or near-azeotropic, making them difficult to separate using conventional techniques such as distillation. Membrane technology offers a non-thermal, energy-efficient alternative, enabling selective permeation of refrigerant components based on differences in solubility and diffusivity.

By integrating membrane material performance with process design considerations, the research highlights pathways to achieve high recovery and purity levels while maintaining scalability for industrial applications. This approach is particularly relevant as regulatory frameworks drive the phasedown of high-global-warming-potential refrigerants and increase demand for efficient recycling technologies.

Mendoza-Apodaca’s publication represents a significant contribution to the field of sustainable separations and highlights the growing role of membrane technologies in next-generation cooling systems. 

Congratulations to Yuniva Mendoza-Apodaca on this outstanding achievement and on the successful publication of her first first-author paper—an important milestone in her research career!

This work contributes to ongoing efforts within the NSF Engineering Research Center for Environmentally Applied Refrigerant Technology (EARTH) by supporting scalable, energy-efficient, and environmentally responsible separation solutions. EARTH operates within WISE, bringing together interdisciplinary teams to advance breakthrough technologies in refrigerant chemistry and sustainable systems engineering. 

Read the full publication below:
Membrane Technology for Hydrofluorocarbon Refrigerant Separation
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.iecr.5c04781

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