Gas Separation with Membranes at Elevated Temperatures - Tubular Membrane Reactors for the Hydroformylation and the Water-Gas Shift Reaction

The global energy demand for chemical reactions and ensuing downstream processing has never been higher. With growing energy supply, greenhouse gas emissions have continuously increased, which in turn accelerates the current climate change. One way to reduce the energy demand is to use heat independent separation technologies. Polymeric membranes are such a technology. Besides, the integration of polymeric membranes into a reaction system could increase the reaction yield by in situ separating a desired product from the reaction room, which can, e.g., prevent unwanted consecutive reactions.Until now, polymeric membranes were not deemed suitable for the application in large-scale chemical reactions, because of harsh reaction conditions with very high temperatures.However, the development of improved catalysts reduced temperatures for some reactions below 120°C, which are still harsh conditions for polymeric membranes,but not impossible anymore.This thesis aims to find polymeric gas-separation membranes for applications in membrane reactors for the hydroformylation and the water-gas shift reaction (WGSR). Synthesis routes for membranes were developed, and specific gas separation test setups had to be built to analyze permeabilities at elevated temperatures. In addition, the reactions required tubular support materials, which had to be fabricated and tuned for membrane application.The results from this thesis show that gas separation with polymeric membranes at elevated temperatures is possible and can improve industrially relevant chemical reactions.