Acetalization reaction of ethanol with butyraldehyde coupled with pervaporation. Semi-batch pervaporation studies and resistance of HybSi® membranes to catalyst impacts

Optimization of the Production of 1,1-Diethoxybutane by Simulated Moving Bed Reactor

Simulated moving bed technology is applied in the field of pharmaceutical, petrochemical and fine chemistry. It shows capability in separating multicomponent mixtures up to high purities. In this work, an attempt was made to optimize the production of 1,1-diethoxybutane (DEB), using the simulated moving bed technology. A fixed bed model is made with good agreement with experimental results. This fixed bed model was expanded to a simulated moving bed model. This model was used to determine the optimum conditions regarding the switching time and flowrates in each section. From this model, the optimum switching time was found to be 2.4 min, and the ratio of liquid flowrate over the solid flowrate in Section 1Section 2Section 3 and Section 4 of the SMBR was found to be 4.24, 1.77, 3.03 and 1.35, respectively. Under those conditions, the productivity was 19.8 kg DEB per liter of adsorbent per day, and the desorbent consumption was 6.1 L of ethanol per kg of DEB. The results were obtained with a minimum purity of the extract and raffinate of 97%.

Chemical and bio-chemical reactions assisted by pervaporation technology

Since several decades ago, the application of pervaporation (PV) technology has been mainly aimed at the separation of different types of water-organic, organic-water and organic-organic mixtures, reaching its large-scale application in industry for the dehydration of organics. Today, the versatility and high selectivity toward specific compounds have led its consideration to other types of application such as the assisted chemical and bio-chemical reactions. The focus of this review is to provide a compelling overview on the recent developments of PV combined with chemical and bio-chemical reactions. After a general introduction of PV and its theoretical background, particular emphasis is given to the results obtained in the field for different reactions considered, identifying the key features and weak points of PV in such particular applications. Furthermore, future trends and perspectives are also addressed according to the latest literature reports.

Potential of Pervaporation and Vapor Separation with Water Selective Membranes for an Optimized Production of Biofuels—A Review

The development of processes based on the integration of new technologies is of growing interest to industrial catalysis. Recently, significant efforts have been focused on the design of catalytic membrane reactors to improve process performance. In particular, the use of membranes, that allow a selective permeation of water from the reaction mixture, positively affects the reaction evolution by improving conversion for all reactions thermodynamically or kinetically limited by the presence of water. In this paper, how pervaporation (PV) and vapor permeation (VP) technologies can improve the catalytic performance of reactions of industrial interest is considered. Specifically, technological approaches proposed in the literature are discussed with the aim of highlighting advantages and problems encountered in order to address research towards the optimization of membrane reactor configurations for liquid biofuel production in large scale.

Facile synthesis of Cu3(BTC)2/cellulose acetate mixed matrix membranes and their catalytic applications in continuous flow process

The Cu₃(BTC)₂/cellulose acetate mixed matrix membranes were fabricated for the acetalization of aldehydes.

Mass-fractal growth in niobia/silsesquioxane mixtures: a small-angle X-ray scattering study

The nucleation and growth of niobium pentaethoxide (NPE)-derived clusters in ethanol, through acid-catalyzed hydrolysis/condensation in the presence and absence of the silsesquioxane 1,2-bis(triethoxysilyl)ethane (BTESE), was monitored at 298-333 K by small-angle X-ray scattering. The data were analyzed with a newly derived model for polydisperse mass-fractal-like structures. At 298-313 K in the absence of BTESE the data indicated the development of relatively monodisperse NPE-derived structures with self-preserving polydispersity during growth. The growth exponent was consistent with irreversible diffusion-limited cluster agglomeration. At 333 K the growth exponent was characteristic for fast-gelling reaction-limited cluster agglomeration. The reaction yielded substantially higher degrees of polydispersity. In the presence of BTESE the growth exponents were substantially smaller. The smaller growth exponent in this case is not consistent with irreversible Smoluchowski-type agglomeration. Instead, reversible Lifshitz-Slyozov-type agglomeration seems to be more consistent with the experimental data.

Driving an equilibrium acetalization to completion in the presence of water

A polymeric acid membrane was generated at the laminar flow interface in a microflow reactor. The polymeric acid membrane-installed microflow devices achieved condensation of a variety of carbonyl substrates with diols to give the corresponding acetals in yields of up to 97% for residence times of 19 to 38 s.