Membrane reactor chemical principles

The transfer of mass within a fluid mixture or across a phase boundary is a process that plays a major role in various engineering and physiological applications. Typical operations where mass transfer is the dominant step are falling film evaporation and reaction, total and partial condensation, distillation and absorption in packed columns, liquid-liquid extraction, multiphase reactors, membrane separation, etc. The various mass transfer processes are classified according to equilibrium separation processes and rate-governed separation processes. Fig. 1 lists some of the prominent mass transfer operations showing the physical or chemical principle upon which the processes are based. 

T. Westermann, T. Melin. Flow-through catalytic membrane reactors—Principles and applications. Chemical Engineering and Processing 2009, 48,17-28. 

Biocatalysts are not always immobilized on membranes in bioreactors, though. As enzymes are macromolecules and often differ greatly in size from reactants they can be separated by size exclusion membrane filtration with ultra- or nano-filtration. This is used on an industrial scale in one type of enzyme membrane reactor for the production of enantiopure amino acids by kinetic racemic resolution of chemically derived racemic amino acids. The most prominent example is the production of L-methionine on a scale of 400 t/y (Liese et al, 2006). The advantage of this method over immobilization of the catalyst is that the enzymes are not altered in activity or selectivity as they remain solubilized. This principle can be applied to all macromolecular catalysts which can be separated from the other reactants by means of filtration. So far, only enzymes have been used to a significant extent. 

Basmadjian, D., 2004. Mass transfer principles and applications. CRC, Boca Raton. Bengtson, G, Scheel, H., Theis, J., Fritsch, D., 2002. Catalytic membrane reactor to simultaneously concentrate and react organics. Chemical Engineering Journal 85,303-311. 

In this section, a summary of the chemical principles involved with membrane reactors for desulfurization are overviewed. The details will be covered in the following sections. Electrochemical desulfurization technologies assisted by membranes have been extensively explored for the removal of sulfur that exists in sulfur compounds in fossil fuels and in SO2 form in flue gas. In principle, SO2 can be absorbed by an aqueous electrolyte solution and then electrochemically converted into species such as sulfate, hydrogen sulfide, and sulfur, among others, by oxidation or reduction processes, whereas the sulfur compounds in fossil fuels can be similarly removed. The universal reaction mechanism of the electrochemical cathodic reduction of organic sulfur compounds in gasoline and diesel is shown in Eqn (14.1) (Lam et al., 2012) ... 

In this chapter, the chemical principles of electrochemical desulfurization of gases and transportation fuels using a membrane reactor were introduced. Theory, applications, and design in the development of membrane reactors to remove sulfur-containing compounds or sulfur dioxide were described. Lastly, future trends in the developments of membrane reactors for ECDS were covered. We sincerely expect an increasing number of researchers and achievements will contribute to the development of ECDS processes in the near future. 

Membrane reactors for energy applications and basic chemical production Edited by Angelo Basile, Luisa Di Paolo, Faisal Hai and Vincenzo Piemonte 11 Pervaporation, vapour permeation and membrane distillation Principles and applications... 

Nowadays, several process simulators such as Aspen Plus and Aspen HYSYS are commercially available for simulating complete chemical processes. Common process units and a property database for numerous chemicals are available in such simulators. However, models for less common and/or new process units (for example, membrane separation) are not readily available in the simulators, but they may be available in the literature or can be developed from first principles. Mathematical model for a new process unit can be implemented in Aspen Custom Modeler (ACM), and then it can be exported to (included in) Aspen Plus or Aspen HYSYS for simulating processes having a new process unit besides common process units such as heat exchangers, compressors, reactors and columns. Process simulators for simulation and ACM for implementing models of new process units are... 

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