Continuous acetone ammoximation over TS-1 in a tubular membrane reactor

A new tubular membrane reactor based on tubular metallic membrane is developed, which can solve the problem concerning in situ separation of catalyst from the reaction mixture and make the production process continuous. In this article, the feasibility of continuous ammoximation of acetone to acetone oxime over titanium silicalites-1 (TS-1) in the tubular membrane reactor was investigated. It has demonstrated that the tubular membrane reactor system can maintain a more long-term steady production of acetone oxime than that of a side-stream ceramic membrane reactor and has a higher productivity than the batch reactor. The effects of operation conditions (stirring rate, residence time, temperature, catalyst concentration, molar ratio of NH₃/ acetone, H₂O₂/acetone, and t-butanol/acetone) on the performances of the reaction system were examined via single factor experiments. Results show that the operation conditions greatly affect the conversion, selectivity of acetone ammoximation, and the filtration resistance. The acetone conversion is >94.5% and the acetone oxime selectivity remains stable at ~98% in a 30-h continuous run.