Via Separations

Via Separations is a company that takes a materials approach to the world's wasted energy. The company values scientific progress, taking a passion for global impact.Via Separations increases process efficiency and decreases cost in any industrial sector.The company is the world’s leading provider of advanced membrane concentration solutions for industrial processes. Via Separation’s partners include Massachusetts Institute of Technology, ARPA-E, MassCEC, APPTI, BioRenewable Deployment Consortium, and the DOE RAPID Institute.

Membrane technology is a separation process that covers a broad range of problems from particles to molecules and a wide variety of membranes are available to the design process. Separations via membrane technology save money across a multitude of industries by transitioning energy-intensive thermal separations to more efficient mechanical separations. By reducing the load on energy-intensive evaporators and distillers, Via's technology saves on energy and process chemicals, reduces downtime, increases throughput, and captures previously lost valuable byproducts.

Transitioning requires a cost-effective, robust membrane that can survive the harsh conditions of these industries. Unlike standard polymer membranes, Via's graphene-oxide-membrane-based systems tolerate elevated temperatures and harsh operating environments.

Via Separations takes a systems-based approach to solving separation challenges. The company works closely with engineering and management teams to build modular systems that meet any plant's technical and commercial needs. By operating as a service, Via provides energy and cost reduction opportunities through a pay-for-production model that reduces a plant's upfront cost and risk, while providing immediate value capture.

Via's modular solution is compact and easily plugs into existing industrial processes without downtime or overhaul of production facilities. This increases flexibility, responsiveness, and reliability as increasing capacity requires only adding more modules and cleaning can happen without shutting the system down.

Via's solvent-tolerant filtration enables the purification of active pharmaceutical ingredients in the drug discovery process. With pore sizes less than 5 nanometers, it is also well suited for heterogeneous and homogeneous catalyst recovery.

The kraft process or kraft pulping is a mechanical and chemical process for converting wood into wood pulp, which consists of almost pure cellulose fibers, the main component of paper. In some cases, the process is controversial due to odorous products and substantial liquid wastes being produced by kraft plants.

Black liquor recovery is the most capital and energy-intensive component of a Kraft pulp mill. Although evaporators and washers are mature and reliable technology, the capital and operating costs of this step in the Kraft process remain high. As a result, evaporators are frequently the bottleneck for total mill production.

Via Separations develops a black liquor preconcentration system that increases concentration from approximately 15% to 30% using 10% of the energy required by evaporators. Via Separations reduces overall energy requirements for black liquor concentration by 50%, increases mill throughput by 3-10%, and increases the production of valuable co-products, such as tall oil for softwood pulp mills.

Via Separations develops an efficient concentration process that eliminates production bottlenecks and cuts the energy consumption of black liquor concentration in half. Mills with limitations in washing, concentration, or high energy costs generate additional free cash flows up to $15 Million per year.

The Black Liquor Concentration System by Via Separations uses a reverse-osmosis-like process to directly remove hot, clean water from weak black liquor. The company's proprietary filtration membranes efficiently concentrate valuable liquor solids at conditions far exceeding the operating window of any other separation technology on the market.The system provides hot, clean water from the weak black liquor which can be reused without reheating in applications such as brownstock washing. The system also delivers a steady and controlled feed concentration to the evaporation system at the ideal solids for operation, which reduces fouling and improves uptime for the evaporation system and mill.

Whether solvent recovery, acid concentration, azeotropic recovery, organic separations, or small molecule separation, there is a diversity of applications in the chemical and petrochemical sectors that Via can address. While Via's expertise lies in liquid-liquid separations, gas separations are under exploration.

The robustness of the company's materials increases membrane lifetime relative to conventional filtration systems, lowering maintenance and replacement costs. Further, the ability to perform cleaning cycles at higher temperatures and across a broader pH range results in significantly increased uptime.

Via Separations creates solutions to applications for pulp and paper, food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, and semiconductors. By 2050, Via Separations is deploying its technology in pilot trials at pulp & paper facilities to eliminate 100 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. Via's innovation is a highly selective and robust membrane filter that replaces the energy-inefficient, heat-based separations in industrial processes. Spun out of MIT's Department of Material Science & Engineering, Via scales up the technology by more than 10 million times and demonstrates working prototypes at a commercial scale.