Continuous Stirred Tank Membrane Reactor (CST-MR)

Before introducing the continuous stirred tank membrane reactor (CST-MR), it is useful/helpful to report about the continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR).

The continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) is an ideal reactor model assuming perfect mixing, with no spatial gradients of any variable such as species concentration, temperature, pressure, etc. The effect of the perfect mixing is the same value for, e.g., concentration, temperature, etc., in any point of the whole reactor volume; and their values are equal to those of the stream exiting the reactor. In addition, the reaction rate has the same value in any point of the reactor. Therefore, this reactor model operating at the lowest reactant concentration and the highest product concentration results in the lowest reaction rate. However, an important effect of perfect mixing is an easy temperature and reaction rate control, which results quite simply. Figure 1 shows a CSTR scheme.

Fig. 1

Continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) scheme