Budget First Steps to Financial Freedom | personal finance application

In these difficult economic times, the middle class is being squeezed more than ever.? As unemployment continues to rise the future is not exactly bright.? That is why everyone should be trying to increase their savings while trying to reduce their spending.? No matter how solid you may think your employment is, in todays economy and for the foreseeable future nobody is guaranteed employment.? Even the once sacred government job is no longer secure.? Municipalities, counties, and states are all experiencing budget crunches and in some communities even police have been laid off.  Let???s not even talk about the federal governments problems.

So you want to save more but are currently barely making ends meet.? The first step to improving your financial situation is to develop a household budget.? One starts by analyzing their current spending habits.? The best way to get your arms around this is to use your debit card for everything you purchase for one month.  You now have a record of where the months income went.? If you dont have the debit card or dont like the idea, you can start by sitting down and listing all your monthly bills, then estimate what you spend on food, entertainment, maintaining your living space and vehicle, etc.  The challenge is to actually record these expenditures for a month as most people tend to underestimate their actual spending.  The bottom line is we all need to develop a household budget or spending plan and review its accuracy in order to effect any change in our financial circumstances.

This process can be greatly simplified by contacting a certified credit counselor at a non-profit credit counseling organization, as they should be willing to help you through this process at no-charge to you.?

The next step is to review your assets and liabilities. Assets are what you own, house, car, clothes, and other personal property.? Liabilities are what you owe to others.? For instance, in the asset column, youll list your vehicle at its current value.? In the liability column you will list what you have left to pay on your vehicle loan.  If the amount you owe is less than the value of the car it is a net asset.? If it is the other way, you owe more than it is worth; it ends up in the net liability column.? The same is true or your house or anything else that you have financed. The difference between one???s assets and their liabilities is one???s Net Worth.  If this is a negative number it means you owe more on your assets than they are worth. 

Now that you have an accurate assessment of what your current financial picture looks like, you can set goals and use budgeting as a way to achieve them.

For many younger adults the goal of Home-ownership is common, with the most common roadblock to achieving it being their credit situation.? For the past twenty years Americans have enjoyed ???loose credit? but at a price.? (Interest rates on credit cards for most have climbed into double digits, with the average approaching 20% APRs.? In round numbers, if you are carrying $10,000 in credit card debt, it is likely to be costing you over $2,000 per year just in finance charges.

This is where a non-profit credit-counseling organization can really help.? After going through your financial analysis with your counselor, they will discuss your financial goals with you and help you develop that spending plan to achieve them.? If you are burdened with considerable credit card debt, they have programs that can get your interest rates back into single, fixed digits and are designed to have you out of debt in five years or less.

For the potential homebuyer that has a high debt to income ratio these programs can help you get into a house years earlier than going it alone and paying those high interest rates.

For more free financial information please contact a certified credit counselor by visiting our website freedomdm.org and fill out our contact request form or opt into a live chat with a credit counselor during business hours. You can also call at 800-905-1563 and receive your free financial consultation right over the phone. Non profit counseling services can improve credit while eliminating debt. You can be debt free, Freedom Debt can help. Call us.

About the Author

Our nonprofit certified Credit Counselors are here to provide you free financial information and counseling services to help you be debt free and improve credit over time.

Source: http://www.taraash.net/2012/03/30/Budget-First-Steps-to-Financial-Freedom/

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Williamsburg, Classes, Activities, Recreational Sports, Art, Dance ...

TENNIS LEAGUES - SPRING & SUMMER: Tennis leagues are offered at the Kiwanis Park Tennis Courts for Ages 13 & over. Men's and Women's Singles, Doubles and Mixed Doubles Leagues are intended for advanced players. Matches are played on Sundays through Fridays 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. Leagues Offered: Men's Singles & Doubles, Women's Singles & Doubles and Mixed Doubles.

Spring League: April 9 - June 7????????????? Register By: March 30

Summer League: June 18 - August 16??? ?Register By: June 8


Registration Information:
  • Fee: $40 for singles / $50 for doubles
  • Fee is based per league
  • Fee covers balls, court costs & awards
  • Register in person, by mail or phone (757) 259-3760

Williamsburg Parks & Recreation

Source: http://williamsburgfamiliessports.blogspot.com/2012/03/williamsburg-parks-recreation-tennis.html

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Destruction as Syrian forces take opposition town

BEIRUT (AP) ? Syrian activists said Wednesday a government offensive in northern Syria during which troops overran a major opposition stronghold has left behind scenes of destruction, with corpses in the streets, homes burned to the ground and shops that have been pillaged and looted.

The reports of 40 people dead in Saraqeb since Sunday come as Arab leaders meeting in Baghdad remain deeply divided over how to help solve Syria's yearlong crisis. President Bashar Assad said he has accepted a six-point U.N. plan to resolve the conflict, including a cease-fire, but the opposition is deeply skeptical that he will carry it out.

The fall of Saraqeb, a large town on the main highway linking the northern city of Aleppo with the Syrian capital, was the latest in a string of opposition strongholds to fall to ruthless assaults by the better-equipped Syrian military. Most of those strongholds and areas around them have since seen renewed flare-ups in violence, reflecting the resiliency of the uprising and the military's inability to firmly put down the revolt.

Activists on Wednesday also reported clashes between Syrian army units and rebels in the country's center, east and south.

At least four civilians, four soldiers and five army defectors were killed in the central town of Qalaat al-Madiq and nearby villages, activists said, as troops advanced and closed in on rebels. The town, in Hama province, has been battered by heavy machine guns and artillery for days. Activists said the town's historic castle was not spared the shelling.

"People are fleeing their homes, many of them unsure which direction to take," said an activist in the area who identified himself as Ammar.

The military seized Saraqeb overnight after a four-day offensive that began Sunday. Rebel fighters had an active presence in the northern town and used it as a base to target army convoys nearby. In Saraqeb, as in other towns and cities recaptured recently by the army, Syrian troops left behind a trail of death and destruction.

The Local Coordination Committees network issued an appeal for international humanitarian organizations to urgently visit the town and said there were many unidentified corpses and wounded people there.

"Regime forces have forcibly displaced a large number of activists' families, and burned and shelled approximately 300 homes. They also pillaged and set fire to most shops," the LCC said in a statement.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the reports and said most of the town's residents had fled along with the rebels. It said more than 40 people had been killed during the fighting over recent days.

The reports by the groups and by other activists could not be independently confirmed. Video from Saraqeb posted on the Internet appeared to back claims of destruction and pillaging.

One video showed what appeared to be a destroyed home. Another showed burned out apartments, several burned cars and a row of shops with their shutters blown off. The slogan "Down with Bashar" was sprayed on one of the shutters. "Down with Iran's dog," read another. Iran is one of Syria's last close allies.

Activist Fadi al-Yassin in the northern province of Idlib said the army was now in full control of Saraqeb, stationing snipers on rooftops and conducting searches and raids using civilian cars and taxis to confuse residents.

He said army defectors known as the Free Syrian Army resisted on the first day but then pulled out, fearing that they would bring more destruction on the town.

"They fled because there was no way they were going to be able to face the regime's huge military force," he said by satellite phone.

He put the toll at around 50 killed since Sunday, mostly civilians but also including rebel fighters.

"The situation is very hard on the ground, and it's difficult for us to get there to find out exactly what is going on because the army is in complete control of the city," al-Yassin said.

Elsewhere, three Syrian soldiers were killed in clashes with rebels in the central province of Homs on Wednesday. The Observatory said the fighting broke out when government forces tried to enter the town of Rastan, which is in the hands of army defectors. The activist group also reported clashes in the Deir el-Zour province along the Iraqi border and said government troops fired mortars at the city of Homs.

The official Syrian news agency, SANA, said "armed terrorists" ambushed an army general in the northern province of Aleppo, shooting him to death.

The fresh violence coincides with a new wave of international diplomacy seeking to end the conflict that the U.N. says has left more than 9,000 people dead.

Syria said Tuesday that Assad accepted a peace plan put forward by U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan. The plan calls for Damascus to immediately stop troop movements and use of heavy weapons in populated areas and to commit to a daily two-hour halt in fighting to allow humanitarian access and medical evacuations.

It also calls for a full cease-fire to be supervised by the U.N. so that all parties can discuss a political solution.

Members of the fractured opposition struggling to end Assad's rule accused him of using the plan to stall for time as his troops make a renewed push to finish off bastions of dissent.

The U.S. and Britain, both of which have called on the Syrian president to step down, said Assad must back his words with action.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Syria's acceptance was "an important initial step" that could bring an end to the violence.

"I strongly urge President Assad of Syria to put those commitments into immediate effect," Ban told reporters in Kuwait City. "There is no time to waste."

The 22-member Arab League was discussing a new resolution on the Syria conflict at a summit in Baghdad. The body's foreign ministers were expected to ask their heads of state to urge the Syrian regime to halt its crackdown on civilians, allow humanitarian groups into the country and free detainees. The ministers were meeting in the Iraqi capital on Wednesday, and heads of state will gather on Thursday.

A Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Jihad Makdessi, said Damascus would "not deal with any initiative" that might come out of the 22-member Arab League.

The League suspended Syria's membership last year as a part of a package of sanctions aimed at pressuring it to stop the crackdown.

Arab countries are divided over how aggressively to intervene in Syria's turmoil. Gulf nations, particularly Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are believed to want to start providing weapons to Syria's rebels and even carve out a "safe area" inside the country that the opposition can use as a staging ground.

Iraq, the host of this week's summit, is more cautious. Baghdad's Shiite-dominated government is close to Iran, Assad's closest ally, and is wary of hurting those ties.

___

AP writer Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/destruction-syrian-forces-opposition-town-162034944.html

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Trading Ideas: Brightcove (BCOV) Set To Benefit From Video ...

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Online video platform provider Brightcove, Inc. (NASDAQ:BCOV) is well positioned to benefit from the changing manner of video consumption, evolution of video content on the Internet, proliferation of high speed Internet access, ... The company's Video Cloud platform offers various features and functionalities such as uploading and encoding, content management, video players, live video streaming, distribution and syndication, social media, advertising and ...

Source: http://www.istockanalyst.com/finance/story/5754608/trading-ideas-brightcove-bcov-set-to-benefit-from-video-content-explosion

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Quaker Oats Man Gets Subtle Makeover

[unable to retrieve full-text content]At age 135, the man on the Quaker Oats label has never looked better. The plump, beaming, white-haired man known as ?Larry? recently got a makeover, making him look slimmer and a little bit younger. It?s a very subtle makeover that is not obvious to...

Source: http://feeds.abcnews.com/click.phdo

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Digicel leads project to deliver high-capacity undersea cable to Haiti ...

By Alcatel-Lucent

Two years after Haiti was struck by a devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake, the country is set to receive a major boost with the delivery of a US$16m 200km undersea cable which will link the country to the world via internet connectivity, thanks to Digicel.

The project ? which is being undertaken in conjunction with Columbus Networks, the undersea fibre-optic cable network provider in the Pan Caribbean Americas region, and Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris et NYSE : ALU) ? will dramatically expand the range and quality of fixed and mobile broadband services and content delivered throughout the country.

The earthquake in January 2010 damaged or destroyed much of Haiti?s communications network ? including the country?s only other subsea cable link which, to date, has not been fully restored. As a result, the Haitian population and the Haitian economy have suffered from the lack of high-capacity broadband connectivity that is pivotal to business, public sector and social activity.

Digicel Group Director of International Business, Conor Clarke, said; ?For more than two years now, Haiti?s recovery has been hindered by the lack of high-capacity broadband connections with the rest of the world. With the delivery of this critical undersea cable, the people of Haiti will see a truly dramatic improvement in the range and quality of communications services available.?

Once completed, the FibraLink Extension to Haiti will provide a secure, high-capacity subsea link with 21 other countries in the Caribbean region ? as well as with the United States and the main internet backbone gateway located in South Florida. Digicel is funding the entire project and has drawn on Alcatel-Lucent and Columbus Networks? technology and demonstrated expertise necessary for the deployment of the high-capacity link.

Digicel?s undersea cable project is the latest in its ongoing recovery and rebuilding efforts in Haiti. As the single largest private investor in Haiti, Digicel has invested over U$600 million to date and employs over 900 people directly and more than 60,000 people indirectly.

Paul Scott, President of Columbus Networks said; ?We are committed to fostering the development and continuous improvement of the communication infrastructure throughout the region where broadband adoption rates are continuing to grow rapidly. This expansion will enable us to enhance broadband connectivity further and thus deliver reliable bandwidth services at cost-effective prices to a very large population base.?

Philippe Dumont, President of Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks, said; ?We are proud to be part of this initiative as one of the variety of other outreach programmes to support Haiti?s recovery. The benefits that this undersea link can bring to Haiti can?t be over-estimated. We are pleased to collaborate with Digicel and Columbus Networks on such a critical endeavour.?

Alcatel-Lucent originally deployed the FibraLink system which provides coastal and terrestrial connectivity from Kingston to Ocho Rios and Montego Bay in Jamaica with direct connectivity to the US by integrating into other part of the Columbus Networks infrastructure.

About Digicel Group

After ten years of operation, Digicel Group Limited has over 11 million customers across its 31 markets in the Caribbean, Central America and the Pacific. The company is renowned for delivering best value, best service and best network.

Digicel is the lead sponsor of Caribbean, Central American and Pacific sports teams, including the Special Olympics teams throughout these regions. Digicel sponsors the West Indies cricket team and is also the title sponsor of the Digicel Caribbean Cup. In the Pacific, Digicel is the proud sponsor of several national rugby teams and also sponsors the Vanuatu cricket team.

Digicel also runs a host of community-based initiatives across its markets and has set up Digicel Foundations in Jamaica, Haiti and Papua New Guinea which focus on educational, cultural and social development programmes.

In 2004, Digicel developed Digicel Rising Stars ? an annual talent show to support aspiring young music artists in the Caribbean. The show has spanned the Eastern Caribbean, Haiti, Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago ranking as one of the top-rated shows.

Digicel is incorporated in Bermuda and its markets comprise: Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, Aruba, Barbados, Bermuda, Bonaire, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Curacao, Dominica, El Salvador, Fiji, French Guiana, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, Nauru, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, St Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Suriname, Tonga, Trinidad & Tobago, Turks & Caicos and Vanuatu. Digicel also has coverage in St. Martin and St. Barts in the Caribbean.

About Columbus

Columbus Networks is a wholesale communications service provider that offers advanced, high-speed bandwidth capacity to telecommunications companies and Internet Service Providers. Through the Columbus Business Solutions brand it also provides integrated telecom and IT solutions to the enterprise market. Columbus Networks operates the largest subsea fiber-optic communications network connecting the United States, Mexico, Central America, South America and the Caribbean. The company?s undersea fiber-optic networks span more than 18,000 kilometers of cable routes including Americas Region Caribbean Optical-ring System (ARCOS-1), Colombia ? Florida Express (CFX), EC-Link cable system, Fibralink and an ownership in the Maya consortium cable Columbus Networks is a wholly owned subsidiary of Columbus Communications based in Bridgetown, Barbados. Columbus Networks is based in North Miami Beach, Florida

About Alcatel-Lucent

The long-trusted partner of service providers, enterprises and governments around the world, Alcatel-Lucent is a leading innovator in the field of networking and communications technology, products and services. The company is home to Bell Labs, one of the world?s foremost research centers, responsible for breakthroughs that have shaped the networking and communications industry. Alcatel-Lucent was named one of MIT Technology Review?s 2012 Top 50 list of the ?World?s Most Innovative Companies? for breakthroughs such as lightRadio?, which cuts power consumption and operating costs on wireless networks while delivering lightning fast Internet access. Through such innovations, Alcatel-Lucent is making communications more sustainable, more affordable and more accessible as we pursue our mission ? Realizing the Potential of a Connected World.

With operations in more than 130 countries and one of the most experienced global services organizations in the industry, Alcatel-Lucent is a local partner with global reach. The Company achieved revenues of Euro 15.3 billion in 2011 and is incorporated in France and headquartered in Paris.

Tags: Alcatel-Lucent, Columbus Networks, Digicell, Haiti

Source: http://www.subtelforum.com/articles/2012/digicel-leads-project-to-deliver-high-capacity-undersea-cable-to-haiti/

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Russia to Romney: How could we be your No. 1 enemy?

Mitt Romney's comment has astounded Russians, who acknowledge mixed relations with the US but point to Russia's integration with the international community as proof that they are not foe No. 1.

Memo to Mitt Romney from Russia: Didn't the cold war end more than two decades ago?

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That pretty much sums up the reaction from many Russians today, where Mr. Romney's "enemy No. 1" jab at Moscow has been played over and over by official media, amid mounting public outrage, since he uttered it in response to President Obama's inadvertently overheard blunt political chat with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on the sidelines of a security conference in Seoul.

Mr. Obama was seen making nice with Mr. Medvedev?and, apparently unaware that microphones were on, asking the Russians to dial back their objections to US missile defense plans until after he's reelected in November, when "I'll have more flexibility."

Romney pounced, not merely at the appearance of secret diplomacy by Obama, but seemingly at Russia itself.

"This is, without question, our No. 1 geopolitical foe. They ? they fight every cause for the world's worst actors. The idea that he has some more flexibility in mind for Russia is very, very troubling indeed," Romney said in an interview with CNN. "The idea that our president is planning on doing something with them that he's not willing to tell the American people before the election is something I find very, very alarming."

While the suggestion of electoral connivance between Obama and Medvedev has made little impression in Russia, which has just been through its own carefully orchestrated presidential campaign,?Romney's comments hit like a bomb.

"It came as a shock. You just don't expect to hear that from someone who's running for US president," says Masha Lipman, editor of the Moscow Carnegie Center's Pro et Contra journal. "I thought an enemy was a country or force that seeks to kill Americans or destroy the US, not a country like Russia that has some civilized differences, which it expresses in forums like the [United Nations] Security Council."

Attitudes toward the US have fluctuated among Russians since the USSR collapsed more than 20 years ago. During the 1990s, the Kremlin sought to align itself with Western policies, but over the past decade, under now president-elect Vladimir Putin, it has carved out a more independent stance, often irritating Washington with uncooperative acts, such as two UN Security Council vetoes?of resolutions aimed at international intervention in Syria's crisis.

But most Russian experts point out that occasional quarrels over big issues like NATO expansion and missile defense ? which often have a distinct cold war ring to them ? are more than compensated for by many examples of Russia's progressive integration into the world community over recent years. Russia is a member of the G8, it sits on the Council of Europe, and late last year it finally joined the World Trade Organization. The military confrontation that once divided Europe into armed camps has dissipated, most former Soviet allies are now members of NATO, and this month Russia even offered its former enemy the use of an advanced Russian airbase in the Volga region of Ulyanovsk?to help ease the strain of resupplying embattled NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/mXZJSkQF3dc/Russia-to-Romney-How-could-we-be-your-No.-1-enemy

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Madonna Banned From Both Of Piers Morgan's Shows

'Welcome to Twitter. You're still banned from my show,' Morgan writes to Madonna.
By Gil Kaufman


Madonna and Piers Morgan
Photo: Getty Images

CNN talk-show host Piers Morgan has not been shy about his feelings about Madonna.

The former "America's Got Talent" judge has been going in on the singer for months, calling her everything from a "con artist" to "gruesome," and making fun of her super-toned physique and Super Bowl halftime show.

But on Monday, Morgan escalated the feud, sending a snippy message to Madonna in which he welcomed her to Twitter while smacking her down once again. The "Girl Gone Wild" singer had set up a special Twitter account on Monday in order to chat with her fans and Morgan wrote, "Welcome to Twitter @MadonnaMDNAday -you're still banned from my show. Love Piers."

That crossed the line for Madonna's manager, Guy Oseary, who responded with his own snap-tastic tweet, posting a letter from October 21, 2011, that says Morgan is "delighted to invite Madonna to be a special guest for his L.A. recording of his U.K. chat show — where she would be welcome to promote her new film and forthcoming album release (and perform two numbers)."

Like a demented game of Hollywood power-broker tennis, Morgan fired the ball back, tweeting, "Madonna's only been banned from my #CNN show @guyoseary - not my UK show, which sent that invite. But I'm now banning her from that too." And he still wasn't done! Morgan then banned Oseary from all his shows too, due to what he called "guilt by association." Morgan has apparently felt slighted over the years by Madonna, especially during his days as an editor at England's Daily Mirror newspaper, where he claims he was lied to by the singer's publicist in order to ensure that a rival paper got Madge's pregnancy announcement.

Morgan caught Madonna on the same day she was finally extinguishing another feud, this one with EDM superstar deadmau5, who had taken the 53-year-old pop icon to task for seemingly making a drug reference during her appearance last weekend at the Ultra Music Festival in Miami.

What do you think of Morgan's Madonna ban? Tell us in the comments.

Related Artists

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1681945/madonna-banned-piers-morgan.jhtml

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New material cuts energy costs of separating gas for plastics and fuels

[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 29-Mar-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Robert Sanders
rsanders@berkeley.edu
510-643-6998
University of California - Berkeley

Metal-organic framework captures saturated hydrocarbons, letting pure unsaturated gases through

A new type of hybrid material developed at the University of California, Berkeley, could help oil and chemical companies save energy and money and lower their environmental impacts by eliminating an energy-intensive gas-separation process.

Today, to separate hydrocarbon gas mixtures into the pure chemicals needed to make plastics, refineries "crack" crude oil at high temperatures 500 to 600 degrees Celsius to break complex hydrocarbons into lighter, short-chain molecules. They then chill the gaseous mixture to 100 degrees below zero Celsius to liquefy and divide the gases into those destined for plastics and those used as fuel for home heating and cooking.

"Cryogenic distillation at low temperatures and high pressures is among the most energy-intensive separations carried out at large scale in the chemical industry, and an environmental problem because of its contributions to global climate change," said Jeffrey Long, a professor of chemistry at the UC Berkeley and a faculty researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Long and his UC Berkeley colleagues now have created an iron-based material a metal-organic framework, or MOF that can be used at high temperatures to efficiently separate these gases while eliminating the chilling.

"You need a very pure feedstock of propylene and ethylene for making some of the most important polymers, such as polypropylene, for consumer products, but refineries dump a lot of energy into bringing the high temperature gases down to cryogenic temperatures," Long said. "If you can do the separation at higher temperatures, you can save that energy. This material is really good at doing these particular separations."

"The research conducted by the Long group exemplifies the potential of MOF-based materials relative to olefin/paraffin separations," said chemist Peter Nickias, a Dow Fellow at Dow Chemical Company in Michigan who was not involved in the research. "More specifically, the ability of the reported iron-based MOF to separate a variety of unsaturated hydrocarbons from saturated species not only shows the versatility of the iron-MOF system, but also clearly reveals the potential of MOFs as alternative adsorbents."

In the chemical industry, ethylene and propylene are called olefins, while methane, ethane and propane are called paraffins.

Long and his colleagues at UC Berkeley and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Md., report their findings in the March 30 issue of Science.

MOFs for natural gas purification

The iron-MOF is also good at purifying natural gas, which is a mixture of methane and various types of hydrocarbon impurities that have to be removed before the gas can be used by consumers. These impurities can then be sold for other uses, Long said.

"MOF compounds have a very high surface area, which provides lots of area a gas mixture can interact with, and that surface contains iron atoms that can bind the unsaturated hydrocarbons," Long said. "Acetylene, ethylene and propylene will stick to those iron sites much more strongly than will ethane, propane or methane. That is the basis for the separation."

Nickias noted that increased supplies of natural gas from shale have provided more opportunity to extract and use ethylene and propylene from natural gas, and a variety of materials and approaches are being examined to cut energy use during the refining and purification of olefins.

"Significant energy savings could be achieved if a non-distillation separation could be implemented, or more realistically, the load on a cryogenic distillation unit can be reduced via upstream modifications to the process," Nickias said.

Petroleum refined for the chemical industry is typically a mix of hydrocarbons, primarily two-carbon molecules ethane, ethylene and acetylene and three-carbon chains propane and propylene. Cryogenic distillation separates these compounds all of them gases at room temperature by liquefying them at low temperatures and high pressure, which causes them to separate by density. Ethylene and propylene go into plastic polymers, while ethane and propane are typically used for fuel.

The researchers found that when pumping a gas mixture through the iron-based MOF (Fe-MOF-74), the propylene and ethylene bind to the iron embedded in the matrix, letting pure propane and ethane through. In their trials, the ethane coming out was 99.0 to 99.5 percent pure. The propane output was close to 100 percent pure, since no propylene could be detected.

After the ethane and propane emerge, the MOF can be heated or depressurized to release ethylene and propylene pure enough for making polymers.

"Once you saturate the material with ethylene, for example you shut off the valve, stop the feed gas, warm up the absorber unit and the ethylene would come out in pure form as a gas," Long said.

MOFs like packed soda straws

Through a microscope, Fe-MOF-74 looks like a collection of narrow tubes packed together like drinking straws in a box. Each tube is made of organic materials and six long strips of iron, which run lengthwise along the tube. Analysis by Long's colleagues at the NIST Center for Neutron Research showed that different light hydrocarbons have varied levels of attraction to the tubes' iron. By passing a mixed-hydrocarbon gas through a series of filters made of the tubes, the hydrocarbon with the strongest affinity can be removed in the first filter layer, the next strongest in the second layer, and so forth.

"It works well at 45 degrees Celsius, which is closer to the temperature of hydrocarbons at some points in the distillation process," said Wendy Queen, a postdoctoral fellow at NIST who worked for six months in Long's UC Berkeley lab. "The upshot is that if we can bring the MOF to market as a filtration device, the energy-intensive cooling step potentially can be eliminated. We are now trying out metals other than iron in the MOF in case we can find one that works even better."

Long and his laboratory colleagues are developing iron-based MOFs to capture carbon from smokestack emissions and sequester it to prevent its release into the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas. Similar MOFs, which can be made with different pore sizes and metals, turn out to be ideal for separating different types of hydrocarbons and for storing hydrogen and methane for use as fuel.

###

The research is part of the Center for Gas Separations Relevant to Clean Energy Technologies, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the Department of Energy that focuses primarily on creating novel materials for capturing and storing carbon dioxide.



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[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 29-Mar-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Robert Sanders
rsanders@berkeley.edu
510-643-6998
University of California - Berkeley

Metal-organic framework captures saturated hydrocarbons, letting pure unsaturated gases through

A new type of hybrid material developed at the University of California, Berkeley, could help oil and chemical companies save energy and money and lower their environmental impacts by eliminating an energy-intensive gas-separation process.

Today, to separate hydrocarbon gas mixtures into the pure chemicals needed to make plastics, refineries "crack" crude oil at high temperatures 500 to 600 degrees Celsius to break complex hydrocarbons into lighter, short-chain molecules. They then chill the gaseous mixture to 100 degrees below zero Celsius to liquefy and divide the gases into those destined for plastics and those used as fuel for home heating and cooking.

"Cryogenic distillation at low temperatures and high pressures is among the most energy-intensive separations carried out at large scale in the chemical industry, and an environmental problem because of its contributions to global climate change," said Jeffrey Long, a professor of chemistry at the UC Berkeley and a faculty researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Long and his UC Berkeley colleagues now have created an iron-based material a metal-organic framework, or MOF that can be used at high temperatures to efficiently separate these gases while eliminating the chilling.

"You need a very pure feedstock of propylene and ethylene for making some of the most important polymers, such as polypropylene, for consumer products, but refineries dump a lot of energy into bringing the high temperature gases down to cryogenic temperatures," Long said. "If you can do the separation at higher temperatures, you can save that energy. This material is really good at doing these particular separations."

"The research conducted by the Long group exemplifies the potential of MOF-based materials relative to olefin/paraffin separations," said chemist Peter Nickias, a Dow Fellow at Dow Chemical Company in Michigan who was not involved in the research. "More specifically, the ability of the reported iron-based MOF to separate a variety of unsaturated hydrocarbons from saturated species not only shows the versatility of the iron-MOF system, but also clearly reveals the potential of MOFs as alternative adsorbents."

In the chemical industry, ethylene and propylene are called olefins, while methane, ethane and propane are called paraffins.

Long and his colleagues at UC Berkeley and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Md., report their findings in the March 30 issue of Science.

MOFs for natural gas purification

The iron-MOF is also good at purifying natural gas, which is a mixture of methane and various types of hydrocarbon impurities that have to be removed before the gas can be used by consumers. These impurities can then be sold for other uses, Long said.

"MOF compounds have a very high surface area, which provides lots of area a gas mixture can interact with, and that surface contains iron atoms that can bind the unsaturated hydrocarbons," Long said. "Acetylene, ethylene and propylene will stick to those iron sites much more strongly than will ethane, propane or methane. That is the basis for the separation."

Nickias noted that increased supplies of natural gas from shale have provided more opportunity to extract and use ethylene and propylene from natural gas, and a variety of materials and approaches are being examined to cut energy use during the refining and purification of olefins.

"Significant energy savings could be achieved if a non-distillation separation could be implemented, or more realistically, the load on a cryogenic distillation unit can be reduced via upstream modifications to the process," Nickias said.

Petroleum refined for the chemical industry is typically a mix of hydrocarbons, primarily two-carbon molecules ethane, ethylene and acetylene and three-carbon chains propane and propylene. Cryogenic distillation separates these compounds all of them gases at room temperature by liquefying them at low temperatures and high pressure, which causes them to separate by density. Ethylene and propylene go into plastic polymers, while ethane and propane are typically used for fuel.

The researchers found that when pumping a gas mixture through the iron-based MOF (Fe-MOF-74), the propylene and ethylene bind to the iron embedded in the matrix, letting pure propane and ethane through. In their trials, the ethane coming out was 99.0 to 99.5 percent pure. The propane output was close to 100 percent pure, since no propylene could be detected.

After the ethane and propane emerge, the MOF can be heated or depressurized to release ethylene and propylene pure enough for making polymers.

"Once you saturate the material with ethylene, for example you shut off the valve, stop the feed gas, warm up the absorber unit and the ethylene would come out in pure form as a gas," Long said.

MOFs like packed soda straws

Through a microscope, Fe-MOF-74 looks like a collection of narrow tubes packed together like drinking straws in a box. Each tube is made of organic materials and six long strips of iron, which run lengthwise along the tube. Analysis by Long's colleagues at the NIST Center for Neutron Research showed that different light hydrocarbons have varied levels of attraction to the tubes' iron. By passing a mixed-hydrocarbon gas through a series of filters made of the tubes, the hydrocarbon with the strongest affinity can be removed in the first filter layer, the next strongest in the second layer, and so forth.

"It works well at 45 degrees Celsius, which is closer to the temperature of hydrocarbons at some points in the distillation process," said Wendy Queen, a postdoctoral fellow at NIST who worked for six months in Long's UC Berkeley lab. "The upshot is that if we can bring the MOF to market as a filtration device, the energy-intensive cooling step potentially can be eliminated. We are now trying out metals other than iron in the MOF in case we can find one that works even better."

Long and his laboratory colleagues are developing iron-based MOFs to capture carbon from smokestack emissions and sequester it to prevent its release into the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas. Similar MOFs, which can be made with different pore sizes and metals, turn out to be ideal for separating different types of hydrocarbons and for storing hydrogen and methane for use as fuel.

###

The research is part of the Center for Gas Separations Relevant to Clean Energy Technologies, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the Department of Energy that focuses primarily on creating novel materials for capturing and storing carbon dioxide.



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Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-03/uoc--nmc032812.php

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