Methane coupling by membrane reactor. Quarterly technical progress report, March 25--June 24, 1996

The experimental study was continued on methane oxidative coupling using an oxygen-permeable dense membrane reactor. The oxygen permeance through the dense membrane was measured and preliminary experiments were conducted with the catalytic membrane reactor. The oxygen permeance was found to be similar to that obtained earlier without catalyst packing. No C{sub 2} hydrocarbons were observed in the catalytic membrane reactor for methane coupling. In order to reduce the non-selective, total oxidation activity of the dense membrane material, the inner surface of the dense membrane tube was deposited by the sol-gel technique with BaCe{sub 0.6}Sm{sub 0.4}O{sub 3}, which is a catalytic, oxygen-conductive material without total oxidation catalytic activity. The dense membrane tube was examined by XRD before and after the deposition. Catalytic experiments with the coated dense membrane reactor were carried out and higher C{sub 2} selectivity was observed than with the co-feed reactor