Dry reforming of methane in contactor and distributor membrane reactors

Abstract

Despite the well-known benefits of catalytic membrane reactors, they are still far from industrial implementation. Researchers who work in this area traditionally use catalytic membrane extractor reactors, which require the application of the most difficult to made catalytic membranes. Catalytic contactor and distributor membrane reactors are as yet imperfectly explored, although they have advantages over extractor reactors in many characteristics. This study is an attempt to fill, at least partially, the gap in understanding of the catalytic membrane process. On the assumption that a membrane-supported catalyst is a type of heterogeneous catalysts, the parameters of methane dry reforming in three catalytic reactors: a catalytic fixed-bed reactor, a contactor membrane reactor, and a distributor membrane reactor have been compared in terms of the classical kinetic method. The investigation has been carried out using the same catalytic system having tungsten carbide as the active component. It has been found that membrane reactors afford higher performance characteristics in the process of the dry reforming of methane, which occurs at high temperatures.