Improved Membranes for Electrosynthesis

对商用离子选择膜进行了改性，以更好地满足电有机合成工艺的需要。正在研究的过程是将甲醛转化为乙二醇。该过程的几个版本中存在的所有物种的传输被跟踪到几个最先进的膜，并与电流密度、温度和电解液流量相关联。建立了膜传输的工作模型。对膜进行了改进，以最大限度地减少溶剂和中性分子的扩散。今天使用的大多数电化学膜要么是为氯碱工业设计的，要么是为电渗析设计的；然而，电-有机过程对膜的要求非常不同。专为有机电合成设计的离子交换膜将提高许多电化学过程的效率，包括生产乙二醇。

Commercially available ion-selective membranes are modified to better meet the needs of electro-organic synthetic processes. The process under study is the conversion of formaldehyde to ethylene glycol. The transport of all species present in several versions of this process is tracked for several state- of-the-art membranes, and correlated with current density, temperature, and electrolyte flow. A working model of membrane transport is developed. Membranes are modified to minimize solvent and neutral molecule diffusion. Most electrochemical membranes used today were designed either for the chloralkali industry or for electrodialysis; an electro-organic process, however, places very different requirements on the membranes. Ion-exchange membranes designed specifically for organic electrosynthesis will provide increased efficiency for a number of electrochemical processes, including production of ethylene glycol.