CO2 Conversion by Membrane Reactors

Membrane reactors technology represents a promising tool for the CO2 capture and reuse by conversion to valuable products. After a preliminary presentation of the fundamentals of this technology, a critical overview of the last achievements and new perspectives in the CO2 conversion by membrane reactors is given, highlighting the still existing limitations for large scale applications. Among the low temperature (<= 100 degrees C) membrane reactor for CO2 conversion, electrochemical membrane reactors and photocatalytic reactors, represent the two mainly pursued systems and they were discussed starting from selected case studies. Dry reforming of methane and CO2 hydrogenation to methanol were selected as interesting examples of high temperature (> 100 degrees C) membrane based conversion of CO2 to energy bearing products.