Membrane Reactor for Methanol Synthesis Using Si-Rich LTA Zeolite Membrane

We successfully demonstrated the effect of a membrane reactor for methanol synthesis to improve one-pass CO₂ conversion. An Si-rich LTA membrane for dehydration from a methanol synthesis reaction field was synthesized by the seed-assisted hydrothermal synthesis method. The H₂O permselective performance of the membrane showed 1.5 × 10^-6 mol m^-2 s^-1 Pa^-1 as H₂O permeance and around 2000 as selectivity of H₂O/MeOH at 473 K. From the results of membrane reactor tests, the CO₂ conversion of the membrane reactor was higher than that of the conventional packed-bed reactor under the all of experimental conditions. Especially, at 4 MPa of reaction pressure, the conversion using the membrane reactor was around 60%. In the case of using a packed-bed reactor, the conversion was 20% under the same conditions. In addition, the calculated and experimental conversion were in good agreement in both the case of the membrane reactor and packed-bed reactor.