Review of Hydrocarbon Dehydrogenation via Membrane Reactors

Dehydrogenation of hydrocarbons such as ethylbenzene to styrene and ethane to ethylene are widely performed in petrochemical industries to produce industrially relevant value-added products. Hydrogen, the by-product of dehydrogenation reactions, is considered as an ideal clean energy carrier with zero environmental footprint which does not cause any greenhouse gas emission upon burning. Increasing conversion of reversible and equilibrium limited dehydrogenation reactions via membrane reactors can be achieved by selective and distributed hydrogen separation from the reactor. In this review applicability of membrane reactors for dehydrogenation reactions are discussed and their added-values are explained.

Keywords:

Dehydrogenation , Hydrogen Production , Hydrogen Separation , Clean Energy , Membrane Reactor