CATALYSIS WITH MEMBRANES OR CATALYTIC MEMBRANES

This paper considers the application of inorganic membranes in conjunc tion with catalysis and discusses attempts which have been made to aff ect changes in the yields and product distributions in a number of cat alytic reactions with a number of different conformations of catalyst and membrane. Various possible reactor conformations are first conside red and then some results obtained for catalytically-active perm-selec tive membranes are presented to illustrate some of the problems encoun tered with such membranes. The use of non-perm-selective wall-and-tube reactors is then considered. Finally, the results of model calculatio ns are presented which show that the most promising confirmation for t he use of perm-selective membranes is one in which the membrane and ca talyst are in separate units and external recirculation of reactants a nd products is carried out.