Boosting the glycerol carbonylation performance by in situ water separation through ZSM-5 membranes with tunable permeability

The direct carbonylation of glycerol with CO 2 is an alternative route to produce high-valued glycerol carbonate, which however faces challenges like low catalytic conversion due to the thermodynamic equilibrium limitation. In this work, ZSM-5 membranes with different Si/Al molar ratios were prepared by hydrothermal method, and coupled with Ce–La–Co mixed metal oxide (CeLaCo-MMO) catalysts for enhancing the glycerol carbonylation performance by in situ water separation. The Si/Al ratio of ZSM-5 showed significant influences on the water permeance, separation selectivity, and catalytic performance for glycerol carbonylation, due to the precise concentration control of Na + gated water transport channels. The reaction-separation coupling process achieved a glycerol conversion of 40.1 %, which was about 4.5 times higher than the conventional batch reactor. The as-synthesized ZSM-5 membrane also exhibited good reusability performance in the cycling test. This work provides a new in-situ water separation strategy for boosting glycerol carbonylation performance without consuming chemical or physical dehydrating agents as compared to the investigations in the literature.