Dehydrogenation of cyclohexane in a palladium-ceramic membrane reactor by equilibrium shift

With the advances in new inorganic materials and processing techniques, the re has been renewed interest in exploiting the benefits of membranes in man y industrial applications. Inorganic and composite membranes are being cons idered as potential candidates for use in membrane-reactor configuration fo r effectively increasing reaction rate, selectivity and yield of equilibriu m limited reactions. To investigate the usefulness of a palladium-ceramic c omposite membrane in a membrane reactor-separator configuration, we investi gated the dehydrogenation of cyclohexane by equilibrium shift. A two-dimens ional pseudo-homogeneous reactor model was developed to study the dehydroge nation of cyclohexane by equilibrium shift in a tubular membrane reactor. R adial diffusion was considered to account for the concentration gradient in the radial direction due to permeation through the membrane. For a dehydro genation reaction, the feed stream to the reaction side contained cyclohexa ne and argon, while the separation side used argon as the sweep gas. Equili brium conversion for dehydrogenation of cyclohexane is 18.7%. The present s tudy showed that 100% conversion could be achieved by equilibrium shift usi ng Pd-ceramic membrane reactor. For a feed containing cyclohexane and argon of 1.64 x 10(-6) and 1.0 x 10(-3) mol/s, over 98% conversion could be read ily achieved.