Moderate-temperature inorganic membrane

Biocatalytic membrane reactors can also be used in production, processing, and treatment operations. The trend toward environmentally friendly technologies makes these units particularly attractive because of their ability to operate at moderate temperature and pressure and to reduce the formation of by-products. Enzymes, compared to inorganic catalysts, generally permit greater stereospecificity and higher reaction rates under milder reaction conditions. Relevant applications of biocatalytic membrane reactors include production of new or better foodstuffs, in which desired nutrients are not lost during thermal treatment novel pharmaceutical products with well-defined enantiomeric compositions and wastewater processes. 

DMFC operated at temperatures above 100 °C exhibit the highest power densities, from 195 to 320 mW.cm at 110 °C up to 240-420 mW.cm at 145 °C, and they correspond to inorganic fillers such as Si02 and binary Si02/ hetropolyacids [30-32], zeolites [52, 53], montmorillonites [61], and zirconium phosphate [75], which prevent Nafion dehydration upon. All these membranes, whose methanol selectivity were not determined in most of the cases, exhibit moderated but systematic DMFC performance improvement (1.1 < RMPD < 1.4) compared to pristine Nafion in both, passive and active cells. 

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