Oxidative activation of light alkanes on dense ionic oxygen conducting membranes M. Rebeilleau a , A.C. van Veen a , D. Farrusseng a , J.L. Rousset a , C. Mirodatos a , Z.P. Shao b , G. Xiong b . a Institut de Recherches sur la Catalyse, 2. Av. A. Einstein 69626 Villeurbanne Cedex France b State Key Laboratory of Catalysis, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, P.O. Box 110,Dalian 116023, People’s Republic of China ABSTRACT The oxidative dehydrogenation of ethane to ethylene (ODHE) has been studied in a catalytic membrane reactor (CMR) using a dense mixed ionic oxygen and electronic conducting perovskite membrane Ba 0.5 Sr 0.5 Co 0.8 Fe 0.2 O 3-& . At 1080K, an ethylene yield of 66% was obtained with the bare membrane. After Pd cluster deposition, the ethylene yield reached 76% at 1050K. Ni cluster deposition led to a decrease of ethane conversion compared to the bare membrane without changing ethylene selectivity. 1. INTRODUCTION Extensive efforts are currently devoted to the chemical conversion of light alkanes, i.e. C 2 H 6 and C 3 H 8 , to valuable chemicals, both being besides methane main constituents of natural gas. Oxidative dehydrogenation (ODH) of alkanes to alkenes is considered as an attractive alternative to the existing thermal steam cracking processes due to the lower temperature required and decreased coke formation. Unfortunately, yields obtained up to now in conventional reactors still remain by far too low for industrial developments. At low temperature (<873K), the best ethylene yield currently reported is below 40% and was obtained with a mixed oxide Mo 0.73 V 0.18 Nb 0.09 O x [1]. The best results for ODHE at high temperatures were close to 44-49% over mixed oxide catalysts [2, 3]. In fact, the reaction of ethane with gaseous oxygen, over all known catalyst is accompanied by the thermodynamically favored formation of carbon oxides, thereby decreasing selectivity at a given conversion. In this way, dense catalytic membrane reactors (CMR) are regarded as promising candidates for enhanced reactor configurations in partial oxidation