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Abstract
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The aim of this work is a comparison of different hydrogen permeation membranes in a thermally coupled membrane reactor in producing two precious chemicals, hydro gen and styrene. A thermally coupled membrane re ac tor is designed as a double pipe re ac tor where methane trireforming for hydrogen production is considered in exothermic side of reactor
and styrene production reaction takes place in endothermic side. The walls of the shell side are coated by the layers of hydrogen permselective membrane. The produced hydrogen in the endothermic side is transferred to the permeation side, while the generated heat in the exothermic side is transferred to the endothermic sec tion. The re ac tor performance is the oretically investigated in the presence of six types of hydrogen permselective membranes which are stable at operating conditions. Results are com pared with each other and it is concluded that the highest hydrogen permeation rate (max i mum 0.6 mol/ s) is achieved in VCrTi membrane named as TCMR5. There fore, it leads to the high est ethylbenzene conversion (98%) and styrene production yield (95%) in the endothermic side as well as methane con version (98.5%) in the exothermic side. Further more, toxic materials such as benzene and toluene decrease to about 66% and 46% in TCMR5 rather than the conventional re ac tor. Con sequently, the fifth thermally coupled membrane reactor en coded
TCMR5 is an environmen tally friendly configuration than others.
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