A robust mixed‐conducting multichannel hollow fiber membrane reactor

Abstract

To accelerate the commercial application of mixed‐conducting membrane reactor for catalytic reaction processes, a robust mixed‐conducting multichannel hollow fiber (MCMHF) membrane reactor was constructed and characterized in this work. The MCMHF membrane based on reduction‐tolerant and CO2‐stable SrFe0.8Nb0.2O3‐δ (SFN) oxide not only possesses a good mechanical strength but also has a high oxygen permeation flux under air/He gradient, which is about four times that of SFN disk membrane. When partial oxidation of methane (POM) was performed in the MCMHF membrane reactor, excellent reaction performance (oxygen flux of 19.2 mL min−1 cm−2, hydrogen production rate of 54.7 mL min−1 cm−2, methane conversion of 94.6% and the CO selectivity of 99%) was achieved at 1173 K. And also, the MCMHF membrane reactor for POM reaction was operated stably for 120 h without obvious degradation of reaction performance. © 2015 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 61: 2592–2599, 2015

Oxygen transport kinetics of MIEC membranes coated with different catalysts

“…Mixed ionic‐electronic conducting (MIEC) oxides are a kind of multi‐functional materials. It can be applied as high active cathodes for solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), as membranes for oxygen separation with infinite selectivity, as catalytic membrane reactors for selective oxidation or reduction reactions, integrated with oxy‐fuel process for CO 2 capture . Among these applications, MIEC materials as oxygen separation membranes producing high purity oxygen at elevated temperature is promising to be commercialized in the near future due to its low costs and high efficiency compared with pressure swing adsorption and cryogenic distillation technologies .…”

A novel CO2-resistant ceramic dual-phase hollow fiber membrane for oxygen separation

“…Cost-effective oxygen production from air separation has always attracted great attention due to its wide application in chemical industries, in pharmaceuticals, petroleum, glass, cement and ceramics, and in pulp/paper and metal manufacturing industries [1][2][3][4][5][6]. In particular, the contemporary society is facing a major challenge by reducing the anthropogenic CO 2 emission to mitigate the severe climate change.…”

“…Among the membrane geometries, ceramic hollow fiber exhibit great potentials in scaling up due to the facile assembly with larger membrane surface area per unit volume and less sealing area compared to disk or tubular membranes [2,3,20,21]. Furthermore, the oxygen permeation flux can also be significantly enhanced through the ceramic hollow fiber due to the thin membrane 5 thickness. [22,23].…”

Selection of oxygen permeation models for different mixed ionic‐electronic conducting membranes

“…Mixed ionic‐electronic conducting (MIEC) membrane is a kind of dense inorganic membrane for oxygen separation with 100% permeation selectivity. MIEC membranes have extensive applications in many fields, such as high‐purity oxygen production, CO 2 capture, selective oxidation, or reduction reactions . Additionally, membrane materials can be fabricated into active electrodes of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) and electrolysis cells (SOECs) .…”

“…24,25 Membrane configurations were also broadly studied in recent years, especially on single-channel and multichannel hollow fiber membranes. 4,26,27 At the same time, some researchers are trying to disclose the oxygen permeation mechanism and build permeation models to describe the oxygen permeation process. [28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35] With the help of a proper oxygen permeation model, the oxygen exchange kinetics, diffusion kinetics and degradation mechanism can be well understood for MIEC membranes.…”