Integrated membrane reactor reforming reaction

Integrating a membrane with a reformer may be done in one of two ways the membrane may be close to the reformer, but downstream from the reaction zone, or the membrane may be located within the reaction zone. The latter is referred to as a membrane reactor and this approach offers the advantage of being able to shift chemical equilibrium by removing product hydrogen simultaneously with chemical reaction. The difficulties of membrane reactors include the following ... 

Two-bed membrane reactor for integrated process involving aqueous-phase glycerol reforming to synthesis gas coupled with DME synthesis process combines two physically separated enclosures (Figure 5.13). The first unit is a tube-in-tube fixed-bed water perm-selective membrane reactor for DME synthesis process. The reaction-side compartment (outer tube) is packed with bifunctional catalytic particles for DME synthesis, whereas the permeate-side compartment (inner tube) is an empty... 

Membrane separation (see also Section 5.2.4) as a unit operation is available for many applications on an industrial scale. However, for smaller scale mobile applications the separation unit is, in most instances, integrated into the reformer or water-gas shift reactor forming so-called membrane reactors, which were presented in Sections 7.1.4, 7.2.3 and 7.3.4. Some examples of fabrication technologies for membranes will be discussed in Section 10.2.5, and examples of membrane separation devices without the presence of chemical reactions will be presented below. 

A radial concept is used for the integration of the combustor and catalytic reactor where concentric functional chambers build outward from a central core (Figure 4). The innermost sections comprise the combustor unit, where air is carried to the interior and raffinate gas from the membrane penetrates through the wall to form a combustion flame along the itmer wall of the reaction chamber. Preheated and mixed steam and fuel enter the reaction chamber and are catalytically converted to reformate. Reformate exits the reactor and is then sent to the... 

Natural gas steam reforming process is an ideal candidate for hydrogen selective membrane integration tanks to its high reaction endothermicity and the fast kinetics leading to equilibrium condition inside traditional reactors. 

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