Membrane Separation Process

Introduction
Separation and purification of the chemical species from a mixture is a crucial part of nowadays chemical process industry. The latest improvements in membrane separation processes caused the growth of some industries, even some processes. Over the last years, membrane separation processes are utilized from the simple process units to the complex process units like reactors. Basically, when reactors operate with a membrane separation process, it is called as a membrane reactor. Several enhancements made in membrane technology, since the concept of membrane reactor was introduced, lead to the case that many companies find it convenient to use membrane reactors in order to accomplish the task. The major reason why we take advantage

In IMRCF, membrane is inert, does not involve the reaction and only plays role for selectivity of the product. A catalytic membrane reactor (CMR) has a membrane that has either been covered with or is made of a material that contains catalyst, which means that the membrane itself participates in the reaction. Although there are pros and cons of each type of membrane reactors, the choice of the membrane is actual matter. Membranes used in reactors are contingent upon some parameters like productivity, separation selectivity, membrane life time, mechanical and chemical integrity at the operating conditions and, particularly the cost. Consequently, the classifications of the membranes are developed on the basis of nature, geometry and separation

Generally, the conversion is supposed to be higher in CMR than in IMRCF because of the fact that in CMR both reaction and selectivity process simultaneously occurs. In other words, in CMR for certain product there is no time to bring about side reactions. Conventionally, while comparing IMRCF and CMR, three circumstances are considered – volume is increasing, constant and decreasing. For the first condition, CMR is better than IMRCF on account of low pressure drop across membrane, in contrast, for the third condition, IMRCF is more efficient than CMR due to the undesired Le Chatelier effect by the pressure variation. Withal, we can take functions of both types of membrane reactors are approximately the same at constant