Alkane dehydrogenation in scalable and electrifiable carbon membrane reactor
Lu Liu, Antara Bhowmick, Sichao Cheng, Borja Hernández, Ying Pan, Junyan Zhang, Yuan Zhang, Yuying Shu, Dat T. Tran, Yuqing Luo, Marianthi Ierapetritou, Chen Zhang, Dongxia Liu
Abstract
Non-oxidative alkane dehydrogenation produces alkene and hydrogen products. The current processes face three challenges: limited conversion due to thermodynamics, rapid catalyst deactivation, and CO2 emissions from process heating. A membrane reactor (MR) has the potential to overcome the thermodynamic limit by removing H2 in situ, but both catalyst and membrane tend to deactivate quickly. Here, we report a carbon membrane reactor that integrates H2-permeable carbon molecular sieve (CMS) hollow fiber membranes and siliceous zeolite-supported metal catalysts. By lowering the reaction temperature using catalysts with a low threshold temperature and by overcoming the thermodynamic limit with CMS membranes, we achieve high conversion and catalyst stability. The electro-conductive nature of the CMS membrane enables joule heating of the reaction, reducing CO2 emissions. We demonstrate a CMS membrane reactor with record-high stability for propylene and ethylene production, the second- and first-largest-volume chemicals used as feedstock globally.