A review of catalytic membrane layers for gas/liquid reactions

This paper summarises the main ideas of how to use membranes with built-in catalytic function for performing catalysed gas/liquid reactions. Mass transfer effects on catalyst performance and other decisive factors for the design of industrial gas/liquid and gas/liquid/solid reactors are briefly reviewed. Various concepts for applying catalytic membrane layers in multiphase reactors are introduced and the motivation behind their use is explained. What follows is an assessment of the present achievements in using such concepts for gas/liquid reactions. The results available in literature are critically evaluated, focussing mainly on the field of liquid-phase hydrogenations and oxidations, which constitute the major areas where catalytic membranes have been applied to date to gas/liquid systems. The aim of such treatment is to point out the targets, to elaborate on how far the whole field has developed and what challenges remain, rather than to cover a multitude of specific aspects of the many different studies reported in literature.