Catalytic Membrane Reactors
Hydrogen Transport Membrane: Eltron has developed a family of membranes that enable high H2 production rates with essentially 100% selectivity to H2. The membranes are designed to operate at the same conditions as high-temperature water-gas shift (WGS) reactors (350-440°C) and have been operated with up to 1,000 psi pressure differential across the membrane. In synthesis gas systems that incorporate WGS, the membranes enable efficient, low cost separation of H2 and CO2, enabling CO2 sequestration while producing high purity H2. The membranes will work with refinery waste streams as well as synthesis gas derived from natural gas, liquid hydrocarbons, coal, petroleum coke and biomass. The membranes are ideal for natural gas or coal-based IGCC applications. Palladium has been the material of choice in the handful of H2 membrane application in industry. The Eltron membrane has 10 times the flux for a given set of conditions and costs about 10 times less as well. The technology recently won the R&D 100 award for one of the most significant new technologies in the world in 2005. More ...
Oxygen Transport Membrane: In the late 1990’s, Eltron developed oxygen transport membranes to separate O2 from air without the need for cryogenic separation units. Eltron licensed this early technology to Air Products who has since spent over $115 million in development with its partners and the DOE. Eltron has new and improved materials which are not covered by the Air Products license. The membranes enable O2 separation of O2 from air (or any gas stream) and can be combined with catalysts on the permeate side to perform a variety of oxidative chemistries including synthesis gas production. More ...
Catalytic Membrane Reactor for Oxidative Dehydrogenation of Methane and Ethane to Ethylene: This system combines the oxygen transport membrane with another catalytic system enabling direct conversion of methane and ethane into ethylene. To date, we have observed a single pass conversion rate of 36% with 94% selectivity to ethylene (overall yield of 34%). This simple system is cheaper than conventional Gas-To-Liquid schemes and produces higher-value products. More ...
Integrated Water Gas Shift / H2 Transport Membrane: This combines a typical water-gas shift reactor with an Eltron H2 transport membrane. The main benefits are: 1) two reactor systems are combined into one, reducing costs and 2) continuous removal of the H2 product shifts the equilibrium reaction, causing higher conversion of the feed (CO and H2O) into product (CO2 and H2). More ...
Integrated O2 CMR with Natural Gas Partial Oxidation: The O2 transport membrane works best when the outlet O2 concentration is lowest and the best way to reduce the O2 outlet concentration is to react it with something else. This can be achieved with Eltron’s O2 transport membrane by integrating it with either a steam methane reformer catalyst or catalytic partial oxidation catalyst on the outlet (permeate) side of the O2 transport membrane.
Integrated O2 CMR with Liquid Fuel Partial Oxidation: This technology is similar to the natural gas-based POX system described above except that the hydrocarbon feed is liquid (propane, gasoline, diesel, etc.) instead of natural gas. This system, coupled with a WGS / H2 membrane as described above would make a very compact system to generate purity H2 for turbines, fuel cells etc. while segregating the CO2 for possible sequestration. More ...
Coal Gasification with O2 Catalytic Membrane Reactor: This is the same concept of integrating the oxygen transport membrane with liquid or gas partial oxidation except applied to coal feeds. Much of the technology is the same. This technology has the added complications of dealing with abrasion effects from the solids as well as handling coal ash and slag.