A novel propylene production method using membrane reactors with hydrogen-selective silica membranes

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24360323
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Partial Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Properties in chemical engineering process/Transfer operation/Unit operation
• Research Institution: Kogakuin University
• Principal Investigator: NAKAO Shin-ichi 工学院大学, 工学部, 教授 (00155665)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): AKAMATSU Kazuki 工学院大学, 先進工学部, 准教授 (50451795)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 水素分離シリカ膜 / プロパン / プロピレン / 膜反応器

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this study, we developed membrane reactors to dehydrogenate propane by integrating hydrogen-selective amorphous silica membranes with dehydrogenation catalysts, and demonstrated effective propylene production with achieving equilibrium shift due to hydrogen extraction. First we developed the hydrogen-selective amorphous silica membranes with tetramethoxysilane (TMOS), trimethoxyphenylsilane or dimethoxydiphenylsilane as precursor by the counter-diffusion CVD method, and demonstrated that all the membranes exhibited sufficient hydrogen-selective performances. Then we successfully demonstrated that the membrane reactor using the TMOS-derived membrane achieved equilibrium shift with producing propylene. However, the effect of coking on the deterioration of the membrane performance was also observed.

Free Research Field

膜工学