Membrane reactors at Degussa.

The review covers the development of membrane reactor technologies at Degussa for the synthesis of fine chemicals. The operation of fed-batch or continuous biocatalytic processes in the enzyme membrane reactor (EMR) is well established at Degussa. Degussa has experience of running EMRs from laboratory gram scale up to a production scale of several hundreds of tons per year. The transfer of the enzyme membrane reactor from biocatalysis to chemical catalysis in the chemzyme membrane reactor (CMR) is discussed. Various homogeneous catalysts have been investigated in the CMR, and the scope and limitation of this new technique is discussed.