Performance of Catalytically Active Membrane Reactors with Different A/V Ratios

Abstract

Although the performance of membrane reactors (MR) is highly affected by the ratio of membrane area-to-reaction volume, there are few studies on this effect owing to the difficulties associated with reactor manufacture. In this study, an MR with high A/V ratio, a diameter of 35 m, and a height of 0.8 mm was fabricated. Separation performance of this MR was investigated in an n-butanol/water system. Esterification of acetic acid and n-butanol was used as the model reaction to investigate the performance of catalytically active membrane reactors (CAMR) with different A/V ratios. The reaction conversion was 38.59% in the CAMR with the high A/V ratio of 12,497/m, which was much higher than that in other CAMRs, for reaction time of 60 min and W/V f ratio of 0.093 g/mL. Excellent catalytic stability of the CAMR was confirmed by performing long-term stability experiments.