Some olefin consuming processes such as for producing fuel additives or specialty chemicals have limited productivity or conversion efficiency due to the presence of other materials that are inert to the process and take up space or are detrimental to the conversion reactions.
The value of the feed streams to these types of processes can often be enhanced by separating the olefins from paraffins or other non-olefins, allowing the downstream process to be more efficient and effective. Permylene membrane systems achieve olefin purities in excess of 99.5% in most of these applications as it typically does in other petrochemical applications.