Dense metallic membrane hydrocarbons

Some dense inorganic membranes made of metals and metal oxides are oxygen specific. Notable ones include silver, zirconia stabilized by yttria or calcia, lead oxide, perovskite-type oxides and some mixed oxides such as yttria stabilized titania-zirconia. Their usage as a membrane reactor is profiled in Table 8.4 for a number of reactions decomposition of carbon dioxide to form carbon monoxide and oxygen, oxidation of ammonia to nitrogen and nitrous oxide, oxidation of methane to syngas and oxidative coupling of methane to form C2 hydrocarbons, and oxidation of other hydrocarbons such as ethylene, methanol, ethanol, propylene and butene. 

H2S can have significant effects on dense Pd membranes resulting in some instances in complete membrane failure in short periods of time. Short of replacing Pd with other metals, it is imclear at this point how one overcomes the problem of Pd sensitivity to sulphur and chloride impurities, which are unfortunately present in many industrial hydrocarbon streams. 

The single cells consist of a dense solid electrolyte membrane and two porous electrodes. In most cases, at least one of the electrodes is exposed to an oxygen-containing gas (often, ambient air), while the other electrode is exposed to an inert gas, a liquid metal, a partial vacuum, or a reacting mixture (hydrogen, water vapor, hydrocarbons, CO, CO2, etc.). The single-chamber reactor (SCR) has been also proposed either as a membrane reactor or as a fuel cell. In this case, the solid-electrolyte disk, with two different electrodes that are coated either on opposite sides or on the same side of the pellet, is suspended in a flow of the reacting mixture (see Section 12.6.3). 

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