PERMIX Efficient Chemical Reactor
Chemical process industries require better control inside their reactors to improve the yield and purity of desired products with minimized waste product formation. For both noncatalyzed and catalyzed reactions, SRI’s PERMIX efficient chemical reactor improves permeation and mixing and is available for license. The chemical reactor technology uses porous materials to control reaction rate and heat, offering reliable concentration gradients and uniform heating throughout the reaction chamber.
The patented process uses one or more permeable tubes with a packing or slurry of inert or catalytic particles. The desired product to waste ratio is increased by a factor of 20. Besides minimizing waste disposal and increasing purity, use of the technology maximizes the yield and lowers overall expense for raw materials.
Initially, performance was demonstrated in a single porous tube. The technology could be retrofitted into existing reactors, using parallel reaction tubes in a design similar to a heat exchanger. With funding from the U.S. Department of Energy through the Center for Waste Reduction Technologies, collaborators from five chemical companies modeled the PERMIX reactor for potential scale-up.
Applications
SRI has identified several potential applications for PERMIX. Major commodity chemical intermediates are prime candidates for the process:
- Caprolactam from cyclohexane
- Adipic acid from phenol
- Cyclohexanol from benzene
- Ethylene glycol ethyl ethers from ethylene oxide and ethanol
- Ethylene oxide from ethylene by oxygen oxidation
- Ethanol from ethylene
- Hydrogen peroxide by the anthraquinone process
- Ethylene glycol from ethylene and oxygen
- Ethanol amines from ethylene dichloride
- Maleic anhydride from n-butane
- Ethylene amines from ethylene oxide
- Phenol from benzene and propylene
- Chloroacetic acid from acetic acid
- Propylene oxide from the Arco process
- n-Butanol from propylene
- Acrylic acid from propylene
- Tetrahydrofuran from maleic acid
- n-Butyl acrylate from acrylic acid by esterification
Both liquid and/or gas-based reactions are improved by the PERMIX chemical reactor. In liquid reactions, laminar flows with particulate mixing elements change the mass transport from molecular diffusion to convective diffusion, increasing it by a factor of 100,000. In gases, fine-scale eddies are created that improve transport by a factor of 100.
