(430a) High Temperature Propane Dehydrogenation Reaction in Microporous Silica Membrane Reactors

Propylene, an important intermediate chemical, is mainly produced by light oil fractions through steam cracking and fluid catalytic cracking. Fixed bed reactors, fluidized bed reactors, and membrane reactors are the common reactors used for propane dehydrogenation reaction (PDH). Pt or Pt-Sn catalysts are widely used for alkane dehydrogenation reactions. Membrane reactors can overcome the equilibrium limit, which exists in conventional reactor, by shifting the reaction equilibrium to the product side in the PDH reaction. In this work, we investigated microporous silica membranes as a high-temperature PDH membrane reactors in combination with a Pt catalyst. Aluminum was incorporated in tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) derived silica membranes for enhancing its thermal stability. Moreover, a simple one-dimensional plug-flow reactor (PFR) model was developed to examine the effect of reactor operation conditions on PDH reaction system.