THE CATALYTIC-OXIDATION OF H2S IN A STAINLESS-STEEL MEMBRANE REACTOR WITH SEPARATE FEED OF REACTANTS

The oxidation of H2S is studied in a membrane reactor with separate fe ed of reactants. As a novelty in the concept of separate introduction of the reactants, a sintered stainless steel membrane is used, because this type of material is easy to integrate into the reactor, and the catalytic properties of the membrane itself makes the often difficult activation superfluous. The macropore membrane (d(p)>1 mu m) is charac terized in the absence of a pressure difference by diffusion and conve rsion experiments for determining the porosity to tortuosity ratio. Be cause the relative large pore diameter of the membrane, Knudsen diffus ion is of minor importance and the last important structure parameter of the membrane, B-0, is determined in a permeation experiment. This m embrane reactor is also studied in the presence of a pressure differen ce over the membrane; a situation where both diffusion and convection affect the overall mass transfer For this reason, a model based on the dusty gas model (DGM) is used, where the structure parameters are est imated from isobaric conversion and permeation measurements and the ph ysical constants are taken from literature. This model predicts the co nversion in the presence of a pressure difference very well, without u sing fit parameters. Generally, it can be concluded that the performan ce of this sintered metal membrane reactor can be described and operat ed equally compared to ceramic membrane reactors with separate feed of reactants. Regarding the fact that there are several other types of s intered metals (e.g. nickel, silver or platinum:), this type of membra ne reactor seems to be applicable for several other chemical applicati ons. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.