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Concept
Membrane reactor
Summary
A membrane reactor is a physical device that combines a chemical conversion process with a membrane separation process to add reactants or remove products of the reaction.
Chemical reactors making use of membranes are usually referred to as membrane reactors. The membrane can be used for different tasks:
Separation
Selective extraction of products
Retention of the catalyst
Distribution/dosing of a reactant
Catalyst support (often combined with distribution of reactants)
Membrane reactors are an example for the combination of two unit operations in one step, e.g., membrane filtration with the chemical reaction. The integration of reaction section with selective extraction of a reactant allows an enhancement of the conversions compared to the equilibrium value. This characteristic makes membrane reactors suitable to perform equilibrium-limited endothermic reactions.
Selective membranes inside the reactor lead to several benefits: reactor section substitutes several downstream processes. Moreover, removing a product allows to exceed thermodynamics limitations. In this way, it is possible to reach higher conversions of the reactants or to obtain the same conversion with a lower temperature.
Reversible reactions are usually limited by thermodynamics: when direct and reverse reactions, whose rate depends from reactants and product concentrations, are balanced, a chemical equilibrium state is achieved. If temperature and pressure are fixed, this equilibrium state is a constraint for the ratio of products versus reactants concentrations, obstructing the possibility to reach higher conversions.
This limit can be overcome by removing a product of the reaction: in this way, the system cannot reach equilibrium and the reaction continues, reaching higher conversions (or same conversion at lower temperature).
Nevertheless, there are several hurdles in an industrial commercialization due to technical difficulties in designing membranes with long stabilities and due to the high costs of membranes.
Official source
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