ABSTRACT
Reactive separation processes are unique in that they couple chemical reactions and physical separations into a single unit operation. The design of a reactive separation process focuses on integrating the reactor and separator operations into a single process operation with simultaneous reaction and separation. The applications of reactive separation process design are numerous and span a broad range of process operations. The potential advantages for implementation of reactive separations are numerous. The coupling of reaction and separation phenomena often leads to simplified separations. The coupling of reaction and separation phenomena leads to coupled heat transfer effects. If the coupling of reactions and separations leads to suppression of byproduct reactions which are likely to exhibit runaway behavior, the reactive separator design will increase the inherent safety in the unit against severe process upsets. The coupling of reaction and separations phenomena necessarily increases the complexity of the process-modeling effort with the coupling of the driving forces for reaction and separation.
