Novel Developments in Fluidized Bed Membrane Reactor Technology

This chapter outlines recent and ongoing investigations on the effect of using membranes in a fluidized bed reactor (FBR), using numerical simulations and experiments. Fluidized bed membrane reactors are a novel, integrated type of reactors where heterogeneously catalyzed reactions can be performed with simultaneous reactant feeding or product extraction in a single unit operation. While this operating technique is beneficial for various reasons (e.g., shift of chemical equilibrium, very good mass and heat transfer), addition or extraction of components can significantly change the behavior of the fluidized bed compared to traditional FBRs, hydrodynamics (bubble and emulsion phase behavior), and mass and heat transfer may be severely affected by the presence of the membranes.