Non-Isothermal Non-Adiabatic Dehydrogenation of Cyclohexane in Catalytic Membrane Reactors

This study focuses on modeling and analysis of the non-isothermal, non-adiabatic, dehydrogenation of cyclohexane in membrane catalytic reactors. The dehydrogenation reaction is endothermic with a low equilibrium conversion of 0.06 at a temperature of 473 K and pressure of 101 kPa. The membrane reactor removes hydrogen from the reaction mixture and results in increase of the reaction conversion. The analysis is made as a function of feed flow rate, feed temperature, feed composition, inert flow rate in the feed stream, flow rate of sweep gas, pressures of the tube side and shell side, permeability constant of hydrogen, and tube diameter. The analysis also includes a study of the co-current and the countercurrent flow modes. The results show lower conversion for the counter-current flow mode, because of the decrease in the driving force for permeation. A comparison of model predictions against previous literature studies shows good agreement.