8 - Membrane Reactor

Abstract

Publisher Summary Considering the essential differences in the operation and behaviors between the membrane reactors and the membrane bioreactors for the living organisms due to the other kinetic models, two reactor types are important: membrane reactor and membrane bioreactor. This chapter analyzes mass transport in membrane reactor configuration. Membrane-based reactive separation processes are applied to thin permselective, porous, or dense layers prepared by means of materials that are organic, inorganic, metal, and so on. The selectivity in reaction networks toward a target compound can be increased by properly adjusting the local concentration of the reactants involved. A membrane separation unit can be applied for the adjustment of the reactant's and/or product's concentration by coupling the membrane separation unit with a chemical/biochemical reactor in the same unit. The unit operation is discussed for its mathematical modeling or description. Two configurations of the membrane reactor system can be applied: in the first case, the reactor and the membrane separation equipment are simply connecting in series, while in the second case, the real membrane reactor concept combines these two different processing units. The membrane serves as a distributor of one of the reactants or as an active catalyst and permselective layer.