The effect of the membrane permsele

The effect of the membrane permselectivity on the performance of a membrane reactor was analyzed. It was concluded that operating with membranes that exhibit higher permselectivities enhances the permeation of CO to the reaction chamber, hence boosting the conversion of CO and lowering its retentate output molar fraction. It was seen thatfor Da > 0.1 very low concentrations of CO were observed in the output retentate stream. Nevertheless, the CO concentration in the permeate stream was above the desired 10 ppmlevel. To avoid using an additional separation unit for its purification, it was proposed to mix the retentate and permeate streams. While the membrane reactor was able toreach 10 ppm of CO on the mixed stream with a permselectivity value as low as 15 ðPP¼ 0:005Þ, higher permselectivity values are required to effectively remove CO at stage cutvalues smaller than 0.45; a MR with permselectivity 50 performs the purification with a stage cut of 0.15. More permselective membranes also had lower catalytic activityrequirements to achieve the desired purity. Nonetheless, it was observed that regardless the permselectivity, the catalytic requirements were always inferior to those of the conventional PROX reactor.