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Materials in Chemical Engineering Applications

Catalytic Membrane Reactors

Short technical description
Dense membrane reactors from oxygen permeable materials consist an attractive reactor technology for carrying out selective oxidations, oxidative dehydrogenations or redox reactions. An innovative concept includes the coupling of the material reduction and oxidation ability in order to carry out efficiently a chemical process. Examples can be the decomposition of water to very pure hydrogen and the decomposition of carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide which can be utilized as raw material for the production of chemicals. The reaction performance can be drastically enhanced if an oxidation reaction is coupled in side B of the membrane. The partial oxidation of natural gas to synthesis gas is also an important possibility. The basic concepts are illustrated in the picture.   

Indicative Applications (Social Drivers: Energy, Environment)
The production of hydrogen fuel from a renewable source such as water. When the required heat is also provided by a renewable source (e.g. sun) the whole process becomes very attractive since the production of hydrogen fuel is entirely based on renewable raw material and energy sources. In addition, there are no emissions of carbon dioxide.
In an alternative operation mode the process can serve as carbon dioxide reduction to carbon monoxide or reduction of the environmentally harmful species NOx and SOx. 
Additional experiments have shown promising results for the partial oxidation of natural gas to synthesis gas using pure oxygen delivered from the membrane material (and therefore avoiding the large and non useful nitrogen quantities that are present when air is used).

Indicative publications   
J. Membr. Sci. 325, 704-711, 2008
International Journal of Hydrogen Energy 34, 7162-7172, 2009

 

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