OUR ARTICLE ON THE COVER OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING JOURNAL:

OUR ARTICLE ON THE COVER OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING JOURNAL:

The utilization of membrane technology in the microreactors has a great potential for chemical engineering. This was proven by the recent article of Can Aran and Rob Lammertink, which is featured on the cover of the membrane of the Chemical Engineering Journal.

“Porous Ceramic Mesoreactors: A new approach for gas–liquid contacting in multiphase microreaction technology”

This study introduces a new membrane reactor concept for multiphase (gas-liquid-solid) reactions in microreactors. The contact between the gas, liquid and solid phases is achieved by the use of membrane technology.

We developed porous ceramic mesoreactors with controllable wetting properties and catalytic activity and applied them for an environmentally relevant model reaction (Pd-catalyzed hydrogenation of nitrite ions in water). Our results showed that the performance of the reactor could be drastically enhanced by tuning the surface properties and remained constant even at dilute concentrations of the gaseous reactant.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2010.11.005

This work was a collaboration of several research groups in University of Twente: Soft Matter Fluidics and Interfaces (Can Aran, Rob Lammertink), Catalytic Processes and Materials (Kumar Chinthaginjala, Leon Lefferts) and Membrane Science and Technology (Ramon Groote, Tobias Roelofs, Matthias Wessling).

This project was financially supported by Stichting voor de Technische Wetenschappen (STW, Project 07569). The authors are grateful to B. Geerdink, K. Altena -Schildkamp and J.A.M. Vrielink for analysis and technical support, D. Salamon and J.M. Jani for the fruitful discussions and J. Bennink (Tingle.nl) for making the illustrations.