Catalyst Bed Separated from Membrane

Many of the earlier studies on inorganic membrane reactors use a bed of catalyst particles contained inside the membrane element Transport of the reaction components into and out of the catalyst particles mostly rely on diffusion. In addition, transport of the reaction product(s) out of the catalyst bed may not be as efficient as the other modes of catalyst placement relative to the membrane. 

Yeung et al. [1994] extended the studies to a general case of a bed of catalyst pellets on the feed side of a membrane reactor where the membrane is catalytically inert for an arbitrary number of reactions with arbitrary kinetics under nonisothermal conditions. Their conclusions are similar to those for the case of pellets in a fixed bed reactor [Baratti et al., 1993]. It appears that the presence of a catalytically inert membrane and a permeate su-eam do not affect the nature of the optimal catalyst distribution but may 

For a more specific case of an isothermal first order reversible reaction of the type 

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