Feasibility analysis of membrane reactors : discovery of reactive arheotropes

[Objective] The coupling of reaction and membrane separation brings several potential advantages as many applications have been reported in literature; but rare ones investigate the feasibility and synthesis of membrane reactors, i.e. to screen proper membranes and operating parameters for a target reaction. To develop a systematic methodology for membrane reactor synthesis, an approach adopted from distillation processes is generalized to be applicable for membrane separation processes. [New Results] 1. Retentate phase composition diagrams and bifurcation analysis are studied to evaluate the effects of membranes, catalyst concentration, operating pressure and temperature, etc. The reactive ternary mixtures in the ideal liquid phase, and the esterification reaction of propyl acetate coupled with permeation through porous polycarbonate membranes, are considered in detail as examples. 2. A new set of composition variables transforms the original model equations into an analogous form of open distillation, and leads to a hypothesis stating the explicit conditions for singular points in membrane processes which are termed as (reactive) arheotropes. [Significance] The vision of this work is to formulate a methodology such that the feasibility analysis and process synthesis of membrane reactors can be carried out directly based on the characterisation of the membranes