Membrane Reactors

Abstract

The term membrane reactor first began to appear in the chemical processing literature around 1980. Over the past decade, it has attained a proper niche in the lexicon of membrane technology and the topic is now a regular feature at membrane conferences and symposia as well as being the subject of a growing technical literature. Although there is no commonly accepted definition of a membrane reactor, the term is usually applied to membrane processes/ devices whose function is to perform net chemical conversion under conditions in which the unique contacting features of membrane devices are exploited. In particular, the term membrane reactor is reserved for those processes wherein the membrane functions as more than simply a reactive membrane i.e., a membrane matrix used for catalyst immobilization. These special features of membrane reactors have been demonstrated with multilayer devices (Matson 1979; Matson and Quinn 1986) and, more recently, with multiphase membrane contactors (Matson 1989a 1989b; Matson and Lopez 1989; Lopez et al. 1990). These important developments appear to be among the first ones in this emerging new area of reaction engineering and, therefore, a review such as the present one can serve as but a snapshot of the field in 1990, presenting underlying concepts and illustrating typical applications.

Keywords

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