Development and scale-up of enhanced polymeric membrane reactor systems for organic synthesis

dc.contributor.authorZhang, Fan
dc.date.accessioned2012-08-01T16:23:04Z
dc.date.available2012-08-01T16:23:04Z
dc.date.graduationmonthAugust
dc.date.issued2012-08-01
dc.date.published2012
dc.description.abstractReversible organic reactions, such as esterification, transesterification, and acetalisation, have enjoyed numerous laboratory uses and industrial applications since they are convenient means to synthesize esters and ketals. Reversible organic reactions are limited by thermodynamic equilibrium and often do not proceed to completion. High yields for these equilibrium driven reactions can be obtained either by adding a large excess of one of the reactants, which results a reactant(s)/product(s) mixture requiring a separation, or by the selective removal of by-products. Conventional removal techniques including distillation, adsorption, and absorption have drawbacks in terms of efficiency as well as reactor design. Pervaporation membrane reactors are promising systems for these reactions since they have simpler designs, and are more energy efficient compared to conventional downstream separation techniques. This project created a general protocol that can guide one to carry out experiments and collect necessary data for transferring membrane reactor design concepts to the construction of industrial-scale membrane reactors for organic synthesis. Demonstration of this protocol was achieved by (1) experimental evaluation of membrane reactor performance, (2) modeling, and (3) scale-up. The capability of membranes for water/organic separations and organic/organic separations during reversible reactions was investigated. Our results indicated that enhanced membrane reactors selectively removed the by-product water and methanol from reaction mixtures and achieved high conversions for all investigated reactions. Second, modeling and simulation of pervaporation membrane reactor performance for reversible reactions were carried out. The simulated performance agrees well with experimental data. Using the developed model, the effects of permeate pressure and membrane selectivity on membrane reactor yield were examined. Finally, a scale-up on transesterification membrane reactors was carried out. The membrane modules investigated included a bench-scale flat sheet membrane, a bench-scale hollow fiber membrane module, and a pilot-scale hollow fiber membrane module. A 100% conversion was obtained by the selective methanol removal. It is found that with high methanol selectivity membranes, the reaction time to achieve a given conversion continuously decreases with increasing the methanol removal capacity of the reactor system. However, this is a highly nonlinear relationship.
dc.description.advisorMary E. Rezac
dc.description.degreeDoctor of Philosophy
dc.description.departmentDepartment of Chemical Engineering
dc.description.levelDoctoral
dc.description.sponsorshipUS Department of Energy (DOE Grant No. DE-FG02-07ER86305); SBIR Program for Phase I and II Support (Grant No. DE-FG02-06ER84529)
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/2097/14115
dc.language.isoen_US
dc.publisherKansas State University
dc.rights© the author. This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
dc.rights.urihttp://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
dc.subjectMembrane reactor
dc.subjectModeling
dc.subjectPervaporation
dc.subjectTransesterification
dc.subjectAcetalisation
dc.subjectScale-up
dc.subject.umiChemical Engineering (0542)
dc.titleDevelopment and scale-up of enhanced polymeric membrane reactor systems for organic synthesis
dc.typeDissertation

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