Experiments and modeling of membrane microreactors

Two types of membrane reactors, the packed-bed membrane reactor (PBMR) and catalytic membrane reactor (CMR) were successfully miniaturized. Zeolites were incorporated as catalyst for reaction and membrane for separation. The membrane microreactors were tested for Knoevenagel condensation reaction between benzaldehyde and ethyl cyanoacetate to produce ethyl 2-cyano-3-phenylacrylate. Supra-equilibrium conversion and high product purity were obtained from selective removal of water during the reaction. A simple computation model was developed to simulate the reaction in the multichannel membrane microreactor using kinetic data from batch reaction, correlated data from membrane separation and published transport data. The influence of reactor geometry (i.e. channel width and membrane location), membrane separation and catalyst properties were evaluated and the results compared well with experimental data. The information provided by the model suggests several ways of improving the reactor performance.