Date post: | 16-Jul-2015 |
Category: |
Documents |
Upload: | a-suryanarayana-raju |
View: | 25 times |
Download: | 0 times |
5/14/2018 Copy of Per Vapor at Ion Study of Aqueous Ethanol Solution Through Zeolite-t...
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/copy-of-per-vapor-at-ion-study-of-aqueous-ethanol-solution-thr
Journal of Membrane Science 276 (2006) 260–271
Pervaporation study of aqueous ethanol solution through zeolite-incorporatedmultilayer poly(vinyl alcohol) membranes: Effect of zeolites
Zhen Huang a,∗, Huai-min Guan b, Wee lee Tan b, Xiang-Yi Qiao b, Santi Kulprathipanja c
a Department of Packaging Engineering, Tianjin University of Commerce, Tianjin 300134, PR Chinab Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore 119260, Singapore
c UOP LLC, 50 East Algonquin Road, Des Plaines, IL 60017-5016, USA
Received 1 July 2005; received in revised form 26 September 2005; accepted 29 September 2005
Available online 2 November 2005
Abstract
In this study, a series of three-layer zeolite-embedded poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) composite membranes have been successfully fabricated with
a casting machine. Zeolites, examined with a loading of 20 wt%, include 3A, 4A, 5A, NaX, NaY, silicalite and beta. These hydrophilic composite
membranes have been evaluated in the dehydration of ethanol aqueous solution by means of pervaporation. The unfilled PVA membrane is observed
to exhibit much higher separation factor than two commercial PERVAP 2210 and PERVAP 2510 membranes. After adding zeolites into the PVA
matrix, higher separation factor and higher fluxes or higher selectivity and higher penetrant permeances are both achieved by these resultant zeolite-
incorporated membranes, indicating that ethanol/water separation has been enhanced with the aid of incorporated zeolites. Through evaluating the
pervaporation performance in terms of water permeance, ethanol permeance and selectivity, we have revealed that the separation performances of
zeolite-filled membranes are strongly related to the zeolite pore dimension, its hydrophilic/hydrophobic nature as well as its crystal framework.
The temperature dependence of the pervaporation behaviors like the penetrant fluxes and permeances has been discussed in detail in terms of
Arrhenius activation energy. The evaluated results have revealed that the permeance and selectivity (i.e., the membrane intrinsic properties) are less
dependent on the operating temperature than the flux and separation factor. Zeolite addition has led to decreased activation energies for water and
ethanol, and more considerable drop of the water activation energy has subsequently resulted in the increased selectivity in ethanol dehydration.
© 2005 Published by Elsevier B.V.
Keywords: Ethanol dehydration; Pervaporation; Zeolite A; Zeolite beta; FAU; PVA multilayer composite membrane
1. Introduction
Pervaporation has gained increasing attention in many chem-
ical processes as an effective and energy-saving membrane tech-
nique for separating azeotropes, close-boiling mixtures, isomers
and thermally sensitive compounds, and purifying species from
highly concentrated streams [1–7]. Pervaporation distinguishes
itself from other membrane processes by a phase transition thattakes place during transporting through the membrane, since the
feed side is liquid mixtures but the permeate side is removed as
a vapor. Compared with other membrane processes like reverse
osmosis and filtrations, the driving force, the pressure differ-
ence across the membrane, for pervaporation is usually higher
because it uses a vacuum on the permeate side of the membrane.
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 22 8591 3391.
E-mail address: [email protected] (Z. Huang).
The separation is controlled by the differences in diffusivities
and solubilities of the competing components through the mem-
brane. Due to differing permeation rates of the components, one
substance at low concentration in the feed stream can be highly
enriched in the permeate.Thus,the pervaporationperformance is
mainly regulated by the physicochemical structure of the mem-
brane rather than the vapor–liquid equilibria of the system of
interest.So far, many attempts have been made to develop various
membranes (asymmetric, composite or mixed matrix) for per-
vaporation applications [3–26]. Polymeric membranes are the
most commonly used materials since they are inexpensive, eco-
nomically processible and at low operating cost. Significant
progresses and achievements of pervaporation separations with
polymeric membranes have been reviewed in several articles
[3–7]. On the other hand, zeolite membranes have advantages
over polymer membranes, such as better chemical and thermal
stability, and have the great potential to separate the mixtures
0376-7388/$ – see front matter © 2005 Published by Elsevier B.V.
doi:10.1016/j.memsci.2005.09.056
5/14/2018 Copy of Per Vapor at Ion Study of Aqueous Ethanol Solution Through Zeolite-t...
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/copy-of-per-vapor-at-ion-study-of-aqueous-ethanol-solution-thr
Z. Huang et al. / Journal of Membrane Science 276 (2006) 260–271 26
of molecules through both the adsorption and molecular sieving
because zeolite materials have uniform, molecular-sized pores.
An extensive summary of current advances and potential appli-
cations of pervaporation through zeolite membranes has been
made recently by Bowen et al. [8]. However, zeolite membranes
generallycost considerablymore to fabricateand aremore brittle
than polymer membranes. In this regard, incorporating zeolitic
particles into a continuous polymer phase appears to establish an
alternative way by coupling the easy processability of polymers
with the superior separation properties of rigid adsorptive fillers
to make zeolite–polymer mixed matrix membranes, which are
more flexible and easier to work with than zeolite membranes.
The idea of adding adsorptive fillers to the polymer matrix
to enhance the membrane separation performance was initially
proposed in 1987 by the UOP researchers for gas separations
[9] and The Netherlands scientists for liquid separations [10],
respectively. For mixed matrix membrane materials, the zeo-
lite added does not readily form a continuous phase. Instead,
isolated zeolite particles are surrounded by polymer molecular
chains. Expectedly, zeolites, through molecular sieving, selec-tive sorption and selective diffusion, increase the mobility of the
preferentially permeating species in the polymer but meanwhile
decrease the mobility of the component that is less permeable.
Experimental studies have shown that the incorporation of zeo-
lites usually results in an increase of either separation factor
[11–13] or flux [14–16] f or many liquid separations except a
few systems where both separation factor and flux have risen
[10,17–20]. teHennepeetal.[10] andChenetal. [17] haveincor-
porated hydrophobic silicalite uniformly into polydimethyl-
siloxane (PDMS) membranes to removal ethanol from water,
and found that both the separation factor and flux are promoted
due to the extra sorption capacity to ethanol of added zeolites.Similar observations apply to Y-type zeolite–PDMS membranes
[18,19]. However, Okumus et al. have reported that the incor-
poration of zeolite A and 13X into cellulose acetate (CA) or
polyacrylonitrile (PAN) have caused a decrease rather than an
increase in separation factor dueto porouscave-like structures as
reflected by SEM examination results, and that increased poros-
ity subsequently lead to an increase in the flux [15,16]. Gao et
al. have fabricated hydrophilic composite membranes consist-
ing of A-type and X-type zeolites and PVA [14]. The authors
noted that an enhanced permeation flux could be obtained
with little or no decrease in separation factor by using these
hydrophilic zeolites, and that pervaporation fluxes increased
with increasing zeolite pore size. Their observations are appar-ently due to the permeation of smaller permeants through the
zeolite pores and the poor adhesion between polymer matrix
and zeolite phase, probably related to the membrane preparation
methodology.
Pioneer works on mixed matrix membranes have clarified the
importance of theproper choiceof polymer materialsand zeolite
fillers for different pervaporation requirements [10–26]. For the
separation of ethanol–water mixture, the concentration of feed
solution and molecular size of species should also be taken into
account. For mixtures with low ethanol content, organophilic
or hydrophobic polymers and fillers should be considered so as
to remove ethanol from its dilute aqueous solution [10,17–19];
for highly concentrated ethanol mixtures, hydrophilic polymers
and fillers may be more appropriate for dehydration purposes
[20].
In our studies, hydrophilic PVA is chosen as the polymeric
material since it is the most attractive and economical poly-
mer material for ethanol dehydration [21–25]. More recently
PVA-based multilayer membranes have emerged since the PAN
support layer could suppress the swelling of the PVA layer at
the PVA–PAN interface and thus retain a dense skin [21,26]
As a result, high water permselectivity and durability could
be achieved as demonstrated by recent works on isopropanol
and butanol dehydrations by using commercial PVA-based mul-
tilayer membranes [27–29]. In our proceeding study, nove
multilayer PVA–PAN based membranes by embedding zeolite
KA (obtained from UOP 4A by ion exchange) have been suc-
cessfully developed for removing water from ethanol aqueous
solutions [30]. The pervaporation results show that the penetran
permeances (or fluxes) and the selectivity (or separation factor)
are all promoted, apparently due to the great contribution of
addedzeoliteKA.Theaimofthisstudyistoexaminetheeffectofdifferent zeolites on membrane pervaporation performance and
to better understand the transport mechanism. Seven differen
zeolites (KA (3A), NaA (4A), CaA (5A), NaX, NaY, silicalite-1
and beta zeolite) are selected as adsorptive fillers by considering
their effective pore dimension, hydrophilic/hydrophobic nature
and framework structure. The membrane pervaporation perfor-
mance has been evaluated and compared with unfilled multilayer
composite membranes in terms of flux and separation factor, or
permeance and selectivity.
2. Experimental
2.1. Materials and regents
The materials used for our investigation are summarized in
Table 1. It is noted that polyester non-woven fabric (PET RS21)
was kindly donated by Crane & Co. Inc., USA. Zeolite beta
Table 1
Materials used in pervaporation experiment
Materials Sources
Ethanol (A.R. quality 99.7%, v/v) Hayman Ltd., England
PERVAP 2210 membrane Sulzer Chemtech, Germany
PERVAP 2510 membrane Sulzer Chemtech, GermanyPolyester non-woven fabric (PET RS21) Crane & Co. Inc., USA
Dimethylfluoride (DMF) (99.8% purity) Merck, Germany
Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) Scientific Polymer Products
Inc.
Poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) (Airvol 350) Air Products & Chemical
Inc., USA
Fumaric acid (Reagent grade) Aldrich, USA
Zeolite 3A (COM 3A) Aldrich, USA
Zeolite 5A (COM 5A) Aldrich, USA
Zeolite 4A (COM 4A) UOP LLC, USA
Zeolite NaX UOP LLC, USA
Zeolite NaY UOP LLC, USA
Zeolite silicalite-1 UOP LLC, USA
Zeolite beta Our laboratory
5/14/2018 Copy of Per Vapor at Ion Study of Aqueous Ethanol Solution Through Zeolite-t...
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/copy-of-per-vapor-at-ion-study-of-aqueous-ethanol-solution-thr
262 Z. Huang et al. / Journal of Membrane Science 276 (2006) 260–271
was synthesized by ourselves whereas zeolite 4A, NaX, NaY,
silicalite-1 were sponsored by UOP LLC, USA.
2.2. Preparation of the polymer solution and dope
A 15 wt% PAN clear solution was prepared by dissolving
PAN in DMF overnight at room temperature under agitation.PVA was dissolved in deionized water to yield a 12 wt% concen-
tration. Fumaric acid at 0.05 mol/mol monomeric unit of PVA
was subsequently added, followed by zeolites at a loading of
20 wt% for zeolite incorporations. Fumaric acid, yielding good
results as reported in our proceeding study [30], was selected
as a cross-linking agent. The mixture was rigorously stirred for
6 h in a heated water bath at elevated temperature of 85 ◦C. The
resultant polymeric dopes were degassed and stored in air-tight
containers before casting.
2.3. Membrane casting procedure
The membrane casting procedure used here is different fromthat previously reported [30]. A casting machine (K Control
Coater, Labomat Essor) at a constant rate of 3.0–4.0 mm s−1,
instead of manual casting, was applied for better controlling the
membrane quality. The procedure could be represented graphi-
cally by Fig. 1. The support layer (PAN) was cast with a casting
knife of 150m thickness by pouring the 15 wt% PAN solu-
tion onto the polyester non-woven fabric substrate. It should be
noted that the substrate was secured and firmly pressed onto the
glass plate to prevent air bubbles from forming in the polymeric
solution during casting. After casting, the two-layer sheet was
immediately immersed into cold water for phase inversion to
form a nascent PAN film. Subsequently, it was transferred into
a tub of running water bath to further remove residual DMF
solvent for at least 1 day.
The third selective layer composed of PVA, fumaric acid and
zeolites was cast using the same 150 m casting knife onto the
PAN layer membrane that was properly secured onto a glass
plate to prevent any folding or curling. The cast PVA top layer
was dried in an oven at 40 ◦C overnight before carrying out
cross-linking at 160 ◦C.
The morphologies of the cross-section and surface of the test
membranes were assessed by JEOL JSM-5600LV field emission
scanning electron microscope (FESEM) at an acceleration volt-
age of 5 kV. A small piece of the test membrane was cut in liquid
nitrogen and mounted onto a SEM stub with the use of a carbon
double-sided tape. The sample was coated with platinum using
a JEOLJFC-1300 autofine coater for 40s at 40mA prior to mor-
phology analyses. The composition of zeolite particle samples
considered was characterized by performing elemental disper-
sive spectroscopic (EDS) analysis on SEM JEOL JSM-6700F
with a simultaneous module.
2.4. Pervaporation experiments
The pervaporation experiments were carried out on a
laboratory-scale Sulzer Chemtech pervaporation unit and its
design has been described elsewhere [27]. The experimental
procedure can be described as follows. A circular test mem-
brane with an effective working area of 15.2 cm2 was cut and
placed in the stainless steel permeation cell. The 2.5 l feed solu-
tion was allowed to circulate using a Speck Pumpen pump at a
flow rate of 80 l h−1. The feed solution was heated up to desired
temperatures via a Haake PC30 heating bath. The temperature
of the permeation cell was constantly monitored by a Greisinger
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of membrane casting procedure.
5/14/2018 Copy of Per Vapor at Ion Study of Aqueous Ethanol Solution Through Zeolite-t...
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/copy-of-per-vapor-at-ion-study-of-aqueous-ethanol-solution-thr
Z. Huang et al. / Journal of Membrane Science 276 (2006) 260–271 263
Electronic GTH 1100/2 DIF digital thermometer. A Western
Pneumatic vacuum pump provided the vacuum to be applied at
the permeate side which maintained the pressure at around 0 Pa
(0 mbar). The vapor permeate was collected in a round-bottom
flask cold trap using liquid nitrogen.
The system was heated up from room temperature to the first
test temperature of 100 ◦C and then allowed it to equilibrate
for at least 2 h. The equilibration permeate was removed and
clean round-bottom flasks were used to collect the permeate
sample at a time interval of 0.5 h with at least twice for each
test temperature. The system temperature was then adjusted to
80 ◦C by loweringthe temperature of theheating bath. Theabove
procedure was repeated for 80 ◦C, followed by for 60 ◦C.
The mass of collected samples was recorded using a Met-
tler Toledo balance (±0.1 mg) and the percentage compositions
of ethanol–water mixtures were obtained by analyzing standard
solutions and collected samples with gas chromatography (GC).
The GC analyzer (Hewlett-Packard GC 6890) consists of an HP-
INNOWAX column packed by using cross-linked polyethylene
glycol) and a thermal conductivity detector (TCD) detector. Thecarrier gas used was helium at a flow rate of 2.0 ml/min. The
temperature of GC oven was set at 150 ◦C. All the analysis data
were recorded by using the hp software (Chemstation Rev A
10.01). Total assay time for each sample was 5 min above the
retention time of either water or ethanol which is less than 2 min
at operational conditions. To minimize the baseline noise prior
to injecting samples to analyze, helium was used to completely
flush the whole system line for 30 min. Every sample was tested
at least twice so as to obtain better than 99% reproducibility.
Each data point is the results of at least two repeated measure-
ments with a 5% deviation or smaller, giving an indication of
the accuracy of the obtained data.The pervaporation flux ( J ) was readily calculated using the
following equation:
J =W
At (1)
where W (g) is the total amount of the permeate during the exper-
imental time interval t (h) at a steady state and A is the effective
membrane area.Separationfactor (α), a very practicaland useful
parameter, was calculated as follows:
α =ywater/yethanol
xwater/xethanol(2)
where y and x are the weight fraction of either water or ethanolin the permeate and feed, respectively.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Zeolite properties
Zeolites are three-dimensional, microporous, crystalline
solids with well-defined structures that contain aluminum, sili-
con and oxygen in their regular framework [31]. Since they have
pore sizes of several angstroms, zeolites are able to discriminate
components of a mixture on the basis of a difference in molec-
ular size (i.e., molecular sieving effect) [31]. The zeolite pore
Table 2
Physical properties of zeolites used
Zeolite Pore size (A) Atomic compositiona
Si/Al Na/Al K/Al Ca/A
COM 3A <4a 1.0 0.45 0.55 –
UOP 4A 4b 1.0 1.0 – –
COM 5A >4a 1.0 0.34 – 0.33NaX 7.4b 1.3 1.0 – –
NaY 7.4b 2.5 1.0 – –
Beta 7.1× 7.3b 16 1.0 – –
Silicalite-1 5.2× 5.7b 196 1.0 – –
a Based on EDS analysis.b From Ref. [31].
size is mainly decided by its unique crystal structure, but it can
also be affected by zeolitic composition, especially for zeolite
A. Aluminum is trivalent, and thus requires a charge-balanced
cation that is located in the zeolite pore. In the case of zeolite
A, charge-balancing cations occluded in the zeolite cavities are
able to tune the pore size based on the size and number of cationspresent. The sodium form of zeolite A is commonly called zeo-
lite 4A since it has a pore size of 4 A. The ion of sodium can
be exchanged by the other cationic ions. Subsequently, the aper-
ture size of zeolite A has varied due to the molecular size of
the exchanged ion. When the sodium ion is replaced by the cal-
cium cation, the resultant zeolite A will have a size of 5 A; when
the sodium ion is replaced by the potassium cation, the zeo-
lite A will have a size of 3 A. As a consequence, the former is
called zeolite 5A and the latter is called zeolite 3A. Displayed
in Table 2 are characteristic properties of zeolites investigated
in our study. Elemental dispersive spectroscopic analysis results
have shown that commercial 3A and 5A still contain an appreciated content of sodium cations, with the Na/Al ratio of 0.45 and
0.34, respectively. Hence, COM 5A has a pore size of less than
5 A and COM 3A has a pore size of much larger than 3 A. In
our proceeding study [30], ion exchanged UOP 4A with K+
(denoted as UOP 3A here) has a Na:Si:Al:K molar ratio of
0.06:1:1:0.94, likely possessing smaller pore size than COM
3A.
Besides the molecular sieving effect, zeolitic hydrophilic/
hydrophobic nature is also a very important attribute of zeo-
lites for pervaporation. Zeolite hydrophilicity/hydrophobicity
is observed to mainly depend on the Si/Al ratio, i.e., zeolitic
hydrophilicity increases as the aluminum content in the zeolite
framework increases or vice versa [8,31]. The localized elec-trostatic poles between the positively charged cations and the
negatively charged zeolitic framework strongly attract highly
polar molecules, resulting in a hydrophilic structure. Among
these zeolites, A-type zeolites (COM 3A, UOP 4A and COM
5A) have high aluminum content (Si/Al = 1.0), followed by
NaX (Si/Al = 1.3), NaY (Si/Al = 2.5) and beta (Si/Al = 16.0)
Silicalite-1 has the lowest aluminum content (Si/Al = 196)
Hence, this suggests that hydrophilicity of these zeolites
increases in the order of silicalite-1< beta < NaY< NaX< COM
3A≈UOP 4A≈COM 5A (please also refer to Table 2). In this
work, the selection of A-type zeolites may render us to under-
stand the pore size sieving effect while the FAU type zeolites
5/14/2018 Copy of Per Vapor at Ion Study of Aqueous Ethanol Solution Through Zeolite-t...
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/copy-of-per-vapor-at-ion-study-of-aqueous-ethanol-solution-thr
264 Z. Huang et al. / Journal of Membrane Science 276 (2006) 260–271
Fig. 2. FESEM photographs of filled and unfilled multilayer PVA-based membranes: (a–c) unfilled; (d–f) filled with UOP 4A; (a and d) top view; (b and e)
cross-sectional view at low magnification; (c and f) cross-sectional view at high magnification.
(NaX and NaY) chosen may elucidate better the attribute of the
zeolite hydrophilicity for pervaporation.
Hydrophobic/hydrophilic nature of zeolites also appears
to depend on their framework structure [8]. Pure siliceous
zeolite beta has been reported to be much more hydropho-
bic than silicalite-1 and the other siliceous 12-numbered ring
zeolites even though they contain almost no aluminum [32].
In addition, silicalite-1 and beta both possess intricate three-
dimensional channel systems, and may discriminate competing
molecules on the basis of a difference in molecular shape.
In this work, we have selected high-aluminum beta and low-
aluminum silicalite-1 to investigate their effect on the membraneperformance.
3.2. Morphologies of fabricated membranes
Fig. 2 shows the FESEM images of the zeolite-incorporated
and unfilled membranes. From the cross-sectional view of both
membranes (Fig. 2b and e), the multi-layered structure of fabri-
cated membranes can be clearly observed, namely, a very dense
top selective layerof PVA or PVA-zeolite,a porous backing layer
of PAN and a support layer of non-woven fabric (PET RS21).
Fig. 2c and f presents FESEM images at high magnification for
two-layers cast. The top layer is seen to be very dense and thin
with a thickness of less than 10m. The backing layer possessesa cave-like structure and is much thicker (∼70m) than the top
selective layer. It is certain that this highly porous layer only
provides mechanic support to the selective layer and contributes
little to ethanol/water separation. The same can be applied to the
most porous and thickest (∼120m) non-woven fabric layer.
The thickness of the layers can be readily approximated from
the scale bar given at the bottom of the FESEM picture. The total
thickness of the multi-layered composite membrane is approxi-
mately 200m.
The non-porous selective layer is expected to be responsible
for ethanol/water separation. The cross-sectional and top views
(Fig. 2d and f) of the selective layer show that the zeolite parti-
cles are well distributed within the polymeric matrix and form a
good contact with polymer with no visible macroscopic voids.
This suggests that the selective layer is possibly defect-free, and
hence able to be effective in ethanol/water separation. In con-
trast, some literature reports have revealed that the addition of
zeolites caused microporous cave-like structures for cellulose
acetate–zeolite and layered PAN–zeolite composite membranes
which resulted in low separation factor and high permeant flux
[15,16]. This is, however, not the case for our multi-layered
PVA-zeolite composite membrane as confirmed by the FESEM
pictures. Hence, these zeolite-filled three-layer PVA membranes
are expected to achieve good performances in ethanol/water per-vaporation separation.
3.3. Pervaporation results
3.3.1. Comparison with commercial membranes
The pervaporation performance evaluation of the unfilled
multilayer membrane has started from a comparison made with
two commercial PVA/PAN membranes of PERVAP 2210 and
PERVAP 2510 (Sulzer Chemtech, Germany). The pervapora-
tion studies of PERVAP 2510 membrane have been previously
reported for water removal from high concentrated IPA and
butanol systems [27,29]. Their results show that this two-layer
composite membrane has achieved very high separation fac-tor for water. For example, separation factor obtained for water
over IPA has ranged from 300 to 1400 with feed water concen-
tration of 2–15 wt%, pervaporation temperature of 60–100 ◦C
and the downstream pressure of less than 100 Pa (1 mbar). The
separation factors are even much higher for butanol isomer sys-
tems. However, this membrane gives very poor performance for
ethanol system as reflected by an invariant separation factor of
15 throughout the test temperature range (see Table 3). The most
possible reason is that the linear ethanol molecule is (1) much
smaller than IPA and butanol isomers [8] and (2) able to form
stronger interaction with water [33] and thus lead to a consider-
able mutual-dragging effect.
5/14/2018 Copy of Per Vapor at Ion Study of Aqueous Ethanol Solution Through Zeolite-t...
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/copy-of-per-vapor-at-ion-study-of-aqueous-ethanol-solution-thr
Z. Huang et al. / Journal of Membrane Science 276 (2006) 260–271 265
Table 3
A comparison of pervaporation performance of different membranes for 20 wt% of water in the feed
Membrane Temperature (◦C) Ethanol (wt%) F (g/(m2 h)) α
Feed Permeate
PERVAP 2210 100 79.16 5.00 3554 72
80 79.21 1.62 1671 231
60 79.34 1.32 451 287
PERVAP 2510 100 80.21 22.51 4018 14
80 80.29 21.72 2456 15
60 80.35 20.47 1413 16
Unfilled multilayer PVA-based membranea 100 80.59 1.93 1511 211
80 80.60 1.00 771 411
60 80.61 0.53 217 779
a Cast in our study.
PERVAP 2510 has shown the poorest performance amongthe
three non-zeolite multilayer membranes as shown in Table 3. In
the meantime, lowering test temperature from 100 to 80 and
60 ◦C has not led to the better separation for ethanol dehy-
dration. These results may be attributed to the low degree of
cross-linking for this membrane which has been confirmed in
the work of Qiao et al. [29]. Due to the low degree of PVA
polymer chain cross-linking (i.e., looser chain packing), water
and ethanol molecules can readily diffuse through the swollen
membrane with no relevance to the temperature dependence
of polymer chain thermal motions. On the other hand, another
commercial membrane PERVAP 2210 seems to possess higher
degree of cross-linking and tighter chain packing, thus it has
high separation factor in the range of 72–290. The effect of test
temperatures is more pronounced for PERVAP 2210 than PER-
VAP 2510 as increases in the polymer free volume [34] andthe frequency of penetrant diffusion jumps [35] at higher tem-
peratures are able to cause the two species to readily transport
through; thereby the lower separation factor at high temperature
for PERVAP 2210 is expected.
For the three-layer PVA membrane fabricated in our work,
the significantly high separation factor has been obtained as
reflected in Table 3, comparable to that reported previously
[30]. For example, the separation factor of dehydration from
an 80 wt% aqueous ethanol solution can reach 779 at 60 ◦C.
Compared to PERVAP 2210 and PERVAP 2510, the increase of
permeation flux with temperature is less significant for the mem-
branefabricated in our study. Theseresults suggest the fabricatedmultilayer PVA membranes have high degree of cross-linking.
As a consequence, tight chain packing and high selectivity for
water/ethanol can be expected for the fabricated membranes,
thus producing higher degree of separation at low temperatures.
3.3.2. Zeolite-incorporated multilayer PVA membranes
From the experimental results, our multilayer composite
membrane is evidently more superior to commercial mem-
branes in terms of separation factor of water/ethanol, and much
more tolerable to high temperature. In effort to further pro-
mote the pervaporation separation performance of the existing
fabricated membrane, zeolites of several types, at a 20 wt%
loading, were incorporated into the separating PVA layer to
produce multilayer mixed matrix membranes. The experimen-
tal pervaporation results of zeolite-filled membranes, at 80 wt%
feed ethanol concentration, are displayed in Figs. 3 and 4
Fig. 3. Pervaporation fluxes of the zeolite-filled three-layer PVA membranes
with a zeolite loading of 20 wt% for dehydrating ethanol aqueous solution
(20 wt% water).
Fig. 4. Separation factor of the zeolite-filled three-layer PVA membranes with
a zeolite loading of 20 wt% for dehydrating ethanol aqueous solution (20 wt%
water).
5/14/2018 Copy of Per Vapor at Ion Study of Aqueous Ethanol Solution Through Zeolite-t...
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/copy-of-per-vapor-at-ion-study-of-aqueous-ethanol-solution-thr
266 Z. Huang et al. / Journal of Membrane Science 276 (2006) 260–271
It can be seen from Fig. 3 that all these zeolite-incorporated
multilayer PVA membranes, except silicallite-1, have consid-
erably higher total pervaporation fluxes as compared with the
unfilled PVA membrane. In terms of the pervaporation separa-
tion factor, all these the zeolite-incorporated membranes have
higher values than the unfilled one except the zeolite NaY-
filled membrane that exhibits much lower separation factor.
These results indicate that at least some penetrant molecules
transport across the membrane through the zeolite pores and
thus the interaction between the penetrant and zeolite pore sur-
face has an important role in affecting the membrane perfor-
mance. The different performances observed for these zeolites
are believably related to their characteristic features: pore size,
its composition and structure. These properties strongly affect
zeolitic molecular sieve effect and the hydrophilic/hydrophobic
nature.
After incorporating zeolitic molecular sieves into the PVA
polymer matrix, the intrinsic properties of the membrane mate-
rials have varied. As highlighted in recent works [27,29], the
membrane pervaporation flux and separation factor are heavilydependent on the operating conditions, which make a meaning-
ful comparison of data nearly impossible and obscure the effect
of the driving force in the pervaporation process. Therefore, we
have evaluated the pervaporation results of the ethanol–water
mixture in terms of permeance and selectivity for clearly under-
standing the effects of incorporated zeolites on membrane sep-
aration performance.
For the polymer-based pervaporation separation, the
solution-diffusion model may be applied. Thus, the permeation
flux ( J ) can be written as:
J water = Qwater(pfeedwater − p
permeatewater ) (3)
J ethanol = Qethanol(pfeedethanol − p
permeateethanol ) (4)
where p is the partial vapor pressure of each component and Q
is the membrane permeance. The partial vapor pressure of water
and ethanol on the membrane feed side can be calculated by
using the Wilson’s equation, as described in our preceding work
[30]. The membrane selectivity (β) is defined as the ratio of the
water permeance over the ethanol permeance.
β =Qwater
Qethanol(5)
Fig. 5a–c shows the pervaporation performances in terms of per-
meance and selectivity of the A-type zeolite-filled and unfilled
membranes for an ethanol–water mixture containing 20% of
water at various temperatures. Also included in Fig. 5a–c are
those pervaporation data obtained for the UOP 3A-filled mem-
branes [30]. It can be found that the unfilled three-layer mem-brane either manually cast [30] or machine-cast has similar
performance to each other. Similar to the pervaporation flux and
separation factor shown in Figs. 3 and 4, these membranes all
exhibit increased water and ethanol permeances but decreased
selectivities as the temperature arises. The temperature effect
can be explained by the variations of polymer free volume and
mobility of penetrants. At high temperature, the PVA free vol-
ume increases remarkably as a consequence of random thermal
motion of the polymer chains [33]. Furthermore, the theoretical
Fig. 5. Pervaporation performance in terms of (a) water permeance, (b) ethanol permeance and (c) selectivity of the A-type zeolite-filled three-layer PVA membranes
for dehydrating ethanol aqueous solution (20 wt% water). (*) From Ref. [30].
5/14/2018 Copy of Per Vapor at Ion Study of Aqueous Ethanol Solution Through Zeolite-t...
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/copy-of-per-vapor-at-ion-study-of-aqueous-ethanol-solution-thr
Z. Huang et al. / Journal of Membrane Science 276 (2006) 260–271 267
diffusivity of the permeating molecules can increase exponen-
tially as temperature increases [34]. Therefore, more penetrant
molecules can be transported through the membranes at high
temperatures, resulting in enhanced permeances for both water
and ethanol. The temperature effect is more pronounced on the
transport rate of ethanol than water as reflected by more signifi-
cantly increased ethanol permeance (Fig. 5a and b). As a result,
the dehydration selectivity reduces at higher operation temper-
ature (Fig. 5c).
Comparing with unfilled membranes, the A-type zeolite-
incorporated membranes all have higher ethanol dehydration
selectivities. However, Gao et al. and Okumus et al. have
reported that a decrease in separation factor were obtained after
the incorporation of zeolite A, which may be due to their mem-
brane casting techniques as revealed by the formation of porous
cave-like structures [14–16]. The multilayer A-type zeolite-
filled membranes also exhibit higher water permeances and
ethanol permeances except the permeances of UOP 3A-filled
membrane. The higher extent of separation can be explained by
the molecular sieving effect and zeolite hydrophilicity. Both fac-tors tend to increase the water selectivity. These A-type zeolites
all have pore sizes (see Table 2) larger than the kinetic diameter
of water molecule (0.264 nm) but smaller than or close to that of
ethanol molecule (0.430 nm) [8]. This distinction may possibly
induce the molecular sieving effect of the zeolite A-based mem-
branes. The Si/Al ratio of zeolite A is 1.0 which makes it one
of the most hydrophilic zeolites. The hydrophilicity, introduced
by zeolite A along with the polymer itself, can make the pre-
pared membrane able to form more specific interactions, such
as hydrogen bonding between the membrane functional groups
and water molecules, more preferably attract water molecules
and transport through the membrane. This effect has also been
reflected by higher water permeances for these zeolite-filled
membranes as seen from Fig. 5a. Furthermore, zeolite particles
are more resistant to swelling caused by water, and then reduce
possibility of loosening of polymeric chains within the zeolite-
based membrane, thus are able to achieve high selectivity.
Among the A-type zeolite-incorporated membranes, it can be
seen that the pervaporation permeance of either water or ethano
is the highest for COM 5A, then for UOP 4A, COM 3A and
lowest for UOP 3A. But the membrane selectivity follows the
opposite order;this is thesameorderthat their pore size decrease
As described earlier, these zeolites are all hydrophilic due to the
high aluminum content. Ion exchange changes the local polarity
in the pores and therefore the adsorption, but may not affect the
hydrophilic nature. Thus, the pore size variation arising from
the ion exchange treatment seems to be the main reason for the
ethanol dehydration results.To better examine the effect of zeolite hydrophobic
hydrophilic nature on the membrane separation performance
we have chosen two FAU zeolites, i.e., NaX and NaY, to study
their influences in separating water from ethanol–water solu-
tion. These two zeolites have the same zeolitic framework bu
with different aluminum contents. The experimental pervapo-
ration results for zeolite NaX and NaY-filled membranes are
shown in Fig. 6a–c. It can be observed that NaX-filled mem-
Fig. 6. Pervaporation performance in terms of (a) water permeance, (b) ethanol permeance and (c) selectivity of the NaX and NaY zeolite-filled three-layer PVA
membranes for dehydrating ethanol aqueous solution (20 wt% water).
5/14/2018 Copy of Per Vapor at Ion Study of Aqueous Ethanol Solution Through Zeolite-t...
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/copy-of-per-vapor-at-ion-study-of-aqueous-ethanol-solution-thr
268 Z. Huang et al. / Journal of Membrane Science 276 (2006) 260–271
brane shows much higher separation selectivity than the unfilled
membrane, while NaY-filled membrane produces significantly
lower degree of separation performance than the other two.
Zeolite NaX and NaY basically have the same pore size of
7.4 A but the former is more hydrophilic due to a lower Si/Al
ratio of 1.3 than NaY of 2.5. The large pore size and rela-
tively hydrophobic nature of NaY may explain the rather low
separation factor obtained by NaY-incorporated PVA mem-
brane for ethanol/water system. The aperture size of 0.74 nm
is significantly larger than kinetic diameters of both water and
ethanol molecules. Thus, NaY zeolite could not perform any
molecular sieving effect to water and ethanol or exhibit any
preferred attractive forces to water than ethanol, instead, may
provide the preferable passage for ethanol penetrant to trans-
port through the membrane. Subsequently, greater ethanol per-
meance has obtained for the NaY-incorporated membrane as
shown Fig. 6b. The less hydrophilic (or more hydrophobic)
nature of zeolite Y seems to agree with that previously reported,
where Y-type zeolite–PDMS membranes were employed for
removal ethanol from water via pervaporation, and resultedin an increase in both separation factor and flux [18,19].
NaX zeolite, being more hydrophilic, has more trivalent atoms
(e.g., Al) substituted for Si atoms and thus possesses more
charge-balancing cations which are occluded in the zeolitic
framework. The electrostatic forces formed by the negatively
charged framework and positively charged cations have ren-
dered it more hydrophilic and are able to selectively attract water
molecules than ethanol molecules, thereby producing higher
selectivity for water. Therefore, higher separation selectivity has
been obtained after adding NaX zeolite despite the large pore
dimension.
Shown in Fig. 7a–c is pervaporation performance results
for the zeolite silicalite-1 and beta-filled membranes. To our
knowledge, this is the first time to apply zeolite beta to fab-
ricate polymer-based composite membranes for pervapora-
tions. Very interestingly, the beta-incorporated membrane yields
much better separation performance than the unfilled membrane
whereas the silicalite-1-filled membrane produces compara-
ble water selectivities. It must be noted that the water selec-
tivity for zeolite materials can be affected not only by their
hydrophilic/hydrophobic property (due to the Al content) but
also by their surface properties and shape selectivities to water
and ethanol [31]. Since silicalite-1 is the most hydrophobic one
amongst the tested zeolites (which is qualitatively determined
from their Si/Al ratios), its incorporation into PVA membrane
likely results in the decease of the water permeance as compared
to the unfilled membrane. In addition, silicalite-1 has sinusoidal
channels that possibly drag the transport of the penetrants, lead-
ing to the deceased ethanol permeance. However, the presence
of silanol groups on the zeolite surfaces stemming from the
intracrystalline boundaries and defects or the aluminum increasethe local hydrophilicity to water. The unique asymmetrical aper-
ture (5.2× 5.7) and sinuous channels of silicalite-1 may very
likely produce additional shape selectivity to small molecular-
sized water. As a sequence, the membrane selectivity has no
much variation.
Similar to silicalite-1, beta zeolite also possesses sinuous
three-dimensional channel systems and a specified asymmet-
rical aperture (7.1× 7.3). Compared to silicalite-1, beta zeolite
generates better pervaporation results in terms of higher water
selectivity and higher permeances. The Si/Al ratio of zeolite
beta of 16.0 is very much lower than zeolite silicalite-1 of 196,
Fig. 7. Pervaporation performance in terms of (a) water permeance, (b) ethanol permeance and (c) selectivity of the silicalite-1 and beta zeolite-filled three-layer
PVA membranes for dehydrating ethanol aqueous solution (20 wt% water).
5/14/2018 Copy of Per Vapor at Ion Study of Aqueous Ethanol Solution Through Zeolite-t...
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/copy-of-per-vapor-at-ion-study-of-aqueous-ethanol-solution-thro
Z. Huang et al. / Journal of Membrane Science 276 (2006) 260–271 269
hence beta has more charge-balancing cations in the vicinity of
the substituted Al atom and is significantly less hydrophobic
than silicalite-1. This additional feature further augments the
water selective capabilities of zeolite beta, producing greater
extent of separation. The larger dimension of zeolite beta aper-
ture size allows more molecules to transport through, explaining
the higher permeance generated as compared to silicalite-1.
3.3.3. Temperature effect
Temperature is an important process variable affecting the
membrane performances in terms of pervaporation fluxes and
permeances, as shown in Figs. 4–7. Many studies have shown
that the variation of the pervaporation flux with temperature can
be expressed by an Arrhenius Eq. (6):
J = J 0 exp
−EJ
RT
(6)
where J 0, E J , R and T are the pre-exponential factor, apparent
activation energy of the permeation flux, gas constant (kJ/mol)and feed temperature (K), respectively. From the Arrhenius rela-
tionship, the pervaporation activation energy (i.e., the energy
barrier for the species to transport through the membrane) can
be evaluated from Eq. (6). Based on the respective water and
ethanol fluxes obtained at pervaporation temperature of 60, 80
and 100 ◦C, the E J values of water and ethanol through the par-
ticular membrane can be found from the slopes of ln J versus
1/ T plots. The E J values obtained are presented in Table 4.
In terms of the pervaporation permeance, the following rela-
tion can be obtained:
Q = Q0 exp−EQ
RT
(7)
where Q0 and E Q are the pre-exponential factor, apparent acti-
vation energy of the membrane permeance. Eq. (7) can be used
in pervaporation to determine the activation energy E Q from the
slope of ln Q versus 1/ T plot instead of ln J versus 1/ T plot. As
pointed out by Feng and Huang [36], the difference between
E J and E Q is the molar heat of vaporization H v, expressed as
follows.
EQ = EJ −H v (8)
Table 4
Evaluated activation energy data for pervaporation membranes investigated
Membrane E Q (kJ/mol) E J (kJ/mol) H (kJ/mol)
Water Ethanol Water Ethanol Water Ethanol
Unfilled 12.6 47.7 53.6 87.8 41.1 40.1
COM 3A 4.2 49.3 45.3 89.5 41.1 40.1
UOP 4A 2.7 46.0 43.8 86.1 41.1 40.1
COM 5A 6.8 43.1 47.9 83.3 41.1 40.1
NaX 5.4 40.1 46.4 80.2 41.1 40.1
NaY 2.1 44.2 43.1 84.3 41.0 40.2
Beta 5.9 41.2 46.9 81.4 41.0 40.2
Silicalite-1 8.2 34.7 49.2 74.8 41.0 40.2
This equation explicitly shows that the enthalpy change due
to the phase transition in pervaporation affects the permeation
behavior.
Table 4 presents the activation energies estimated for the
zeolite-filled and unfilled membranes. It can be seen that that
for all the membranes the activation energies of ethanol calcu-
lated from either the permeance (i.e., E Q
) or the flux (i.e., E J
)
are much higher than those of water, correspondently. There-
fore, more energy is required for ethanol molecules to transport
acrossthe membrane at the same conditions. This is desirable for
our dehydration purpose from ethanol-rich solutions. The lower
activation energies of water than ethanol are the intrinsic prop-
erties of these hydrophilic membrane materials. On the other
hand, the experimental temperature has significantly stronger
effect on the ethanol permeance than the water permeance since
the activation energy ( E Q) for ethanol is around four times
than that for water. For example, the activation energies ( E Q)
of the unfilled membrane for ethanol and water are 47.7 and
12.6 kJ/mol, respectively.
With the addition of zeolites, E Q of water is observed toconsiderably decrease for all zeolites whereas E Q of ethano
deceases a little, as compared to those of the unfilled mem-
brane. These results may suggest that (1) the energy barrier
for both water and ethanol has decreased and then these two
molecules can more readily transport through the materials
especially for water; (2) the permeances of both water and
ethanol have become less temperature-dependent. Due to the
activation energy deceases for both water and ethanol, the pen-
etrant permeances should increase after adding a zeolite. As
shown in Figs. 5–7, this is true for most zeolites investigated
Since more significant drop of the activation energy for water
than ethanol has resulted, or equivalently, greater amount ofwater molecules than ethanol molecules can transverse across
the membrane per unit time, the water/ethanol selectivity thus
are significantly increased, which is consistent with our perva-
poration results (Figs. 5–7).
By comparing the activation energies ( E Q) obtained from
the permeance with those ( E J ) from the flux, it can be found
that the former are significantly lower than the latter, which
in turn indicates that the fluxes of water and ethanol, and the
separation factor are more strongly dependent on the feed tem-
perature than the permeances of two components and selectivity
These behaviors have resulted from that both permeance and
selectivity only depend on membrane intrinsic properties but
flux and separation factor are also dependent on the experi-mental operating conditions. That is to say, the operating tem-
perature influences both the membrane intrinsic property and
the driving force for penetrant transport through the mem-
branein pervaporation process. Recalling that E J (characterizing
the overall temperature dependence) is the sum of E Q (char
acterizing temperature dependence of membrane permeance)
and H v (the molar heat of vaporization), it is clear that the
driving force is closely related to the phase transition happen-
ing in the pervaporation process, and thus strongly depends
on the operating temperature. As shown in Table 4, the esti-
mated H v values for water or ethanol are almost the same
among the eight different membranes investigated. They are
5/14/2018 Copy of Per Vapor at Ion Study of Aqueous Ethanol Solution Through Zeolite-t...
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/copy-of-per-vapor-at-ion-study-of-aqueous-ethanol-solution-thro
270 Z. Huang et al. / Journal of Membrane Science 276 (2006) 260–271
41.0 and 40.1 kJ/mol, respectively, close to those in literature
[37].
4. Conclusion
In this paper, we have investigated the effect of incorporated
zeolites on the separation performance of the PVA-based mul-
tilayer membranes for the dehydration of highly concentrated
ethanol aqueous solution. These composite membranes were
manufactured by using a casting machine with non-woven fab-
ric polyester RS21 as the supporting layer, PAN as the porous
backing layer and poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) as the active sepa-
rating layer.The membrane pervaporation performance has been
evaluated with regard to the flux and separation factor or the per-
meance and selectivity. The following conclusions can be drawn
from this study:
(1) The unfilled PVA-based multilayer membrane is found to
have superior separation performances to the commercial
PERVAP 2210 and PERVAP 2510 membranes, showinggreat potential for industrial applications.
(2) The addition of zeolites into the top PVA selective layer
has increased both separation factor and the overall flux,
suggesting that at least part of the penetrant transport take
place through the zeolite pores and the interaction between
the penetrant and zeolite have an important role in affecting
the membrane performance.
(3) In terms of water permeance, ethanol permeance and selec-
tivity, the separation performance of the A-type zeolite-
filled membranes tend to strongly depend on the zeolite
pore size: smaller pore sized zeolite A canpromote the water
selectivity but decrease the permeance whereas the oppositeapplies to larger pore sized zeolite A.
(4) The zeolite hydrophilic/hydrophobic properties are
observed to significantly influence the separation perfor-
mance of the resultant zeolite-filled membranes. For NaX
and NaY zeolites with large pore-size and the same zeolite
framework, the more hydrophilic NaX has produced higher
water selectivity even though both have led to boosted
permeances for water and ethanol.
(5) Hydrophobic silicalite-1 has rendered the hydrophilic PVA-
based membrane yield much lower permeances for both
penetrants. Less hydrophobic zeolite beta has resulted in
increases of both permeance and selectivity, probably due
to its higher aluminum content and its structural shape pref-erence.
(6) The activation energies obtained for water and ethanol from
their respective fluxes and permeances have revealed that
with the aid of zeolites less energy is required for the pene-
trant molecules to pass through the membrane, and that the
permeances and selectivity are less temperature-dependent
than the fluxes and separation factor.
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge Universal Oil Products
for financial supporting this research. Z. Huang would like to
thank Prof. Neal T.S. Chung for his generous help and valuable
comments. Special thanks must go to Mr. Ralph DiPalma at
Crane and Company Inc. for providing polyester (PET) non-
woven fabric.
Nomenclature
A effective membrane area (m2)
E J apparent activation energy of the permeation flux
from the Arrhenius equation (kJ/mol)
E Q apparent activation energy of the permeance from
the Arrhenius equation (kJ/mol)
H v molar heat of vaporization of either water or
ethanol (kJ/mol)
J pervaporation flux (g/(m2 h))
J 0 pre-exponentialfactor of the permeationflux from
the Arrhenius equation (g/(m2 h))
p partial vapor pressure of either water or ethanol
(kPa)Q membrane permeance of either water or ethanol
(g/(m2 h kPa))
Q0 pre-exponential factor of the permeance from the
Arrhenius equation (g/(m2 h kPa))
R universal gas constant (kJ/mol)
t experimental time interval (h)
T feed temperature (K)
W mass of the permeate during the interval t at a
steady state (g)
x weight fraction of either water or ethanol in the
feed
y weight fraction of either water or ethanol in the
permeate
Greek letters
α separation factor
β membrane selectivity
References
[1] R.Y.M. Huang, Pervaporation Membrane Separation Processes, Elsevier,
New York, 1991.
[2] T. Matsuura, Synthetic Membranes and Membrane Separation Processes,CRC Press, Boca Raton, 1994.
[3] X.S. Feng, R.Y.M. Huang, Liquid separation by membrane pervapora-
tion: a review, Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 36 (1997) 1048.
[4] A. Jonquieres, R. Clement, P. Lochon, J. Neel, M. Dresch, B. Chretien,
Industrial state-of-the-art of pervaporation and vapour permeation in the
western countries, J. Membr. Sci. 206 (2002) 87.
[5] S.I. Semenova, H. Ohya, K. Soontarapa, Hydrophilic membranes for
pervaporation: an analytical review, Desalination 110 (1997) 251.
[6] H.L. Fleming, Membrane pervaporation–separation of organic aqueous
mixtures, Sep. Sci. Technol. 25 (1990) 1239.
[7] S. Zhang, E. Drioli, Review: pervaporation membranes, Sep. Sci. Tech-
nol. 30 (1995) 1.
[8] T.C. Bowen, R.D. Noble, J.L. Falconer, Fundamentals and applications
of pervaporation through zeolite membranes, J. Membr. Sci. 245 (2004)
1.
5/14/2018 Copy of Per Vapor at Ion Study of Aqueous Ethanol Solution Through Zeolite-t...
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/copy-of-per-vapor-at-ion-study-of-aqueous-ethanol-solution-thro
Z. Huang et al. / Journal of Membrane Science 276 (2006) 260–271 27
[9] S. Kulprathipanja, R.W. Nousil, N.N. Li, Separation of fluids by means
of mixed matrix membranes in gas permeation, US Patent No. 4,740,219
(1988).
[10] H.J.C. te Hennepe, D. Bargeman, M.H.V. Mulder, C.A. Smolders,
Zeolite-filled silicon rubber membranes. Part I. Membrane preparation
and pervaporation results, J. Membr. Sci. 35 (1987) 39.
[11] A. Jonquieres, A. Fane, Filled and unfilled composite GFT PDMS
membranes for the recovery of butanols from dilute aqueous solutions:
influence of alcohol polarity, J. Membr. Sci. 125 (1997) 245.[12] W. Kujawski, R. Roszak, Pervaporative removal of volatile organic com-
pounds from multicomponent aqueous mixtures, Sep. Sci. Technol. 37
(2002) 3559.
[13] I.F.J. Vankelecom, E. Scheppers, R. Heus, J.B. Uytterhoeven, Parameters
influencing zeolite incorporation in PDMS membranes, J. Phys. Chem.
98 (1994) 12390.
[14] Z. Gao, Y. Yue, W. Li, Application of zeolite-filled pervaporation mem-
brane, Zeolites 16 (1996) 70.
[15] E. Okumus, T. Gurkan, L. Yilmaz, Development of a mixed-matrix
membrane for pervaporation, Sep. Sci. Technol. 29 (1994) 2451.
[16] E. Okumus, T. Gurkan, L. Yılmaz, Effect of fabrication and process
parameters on the morphology and performance of a PAN-based zeolite-
filled pervaporation membrane, J. Membr. Sci. 223 (2003) 23.
[17] X. Chen, Z.H. Ping, Y.C. Long, Separation properties of alcohol–water
mixture through silicalite-1-filled silicone rubber membranes by perva-
poration, J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 67 (1998) 629.
[18] H. Yang, Q.T. Nguyen, Z. Ping, Y. Long, Y. Hirata, Desorption and
pervaporation properties of zeolite-filled poly(dimethylsiloxane) mem-
branes, Mater. Res. Innov. 5 (2001) 101.
[19] B. Adnadjevic, J. Jovanovic, S. Gajinov, Effect of different physicochem-
ical properties of hydrophobic zeolites on the pervaporation properties
of PDMS-membranes, J. Membr. Sci. 136 (1997) 173.
[20] X.M. He, W.H. Chan, C.F. Ng, Water–alcohol separation by pervapora-
tion through zeolite-modified poly(amidesulfonamide), J. Appl. Polym.
Sci. 82 (2001) 1323.
[21] H. Ohya, K. Matsumoto, Y. Negishi, T. Hino, H.S. Choi, The separation
of water–alcohol separation by pervaporation with PVA–PAN composite
membranes, J. Membr. Sci. 68 (1992) 141.
[22] Y.S. Kang, S.W. Lee, U.Y. Kim, J.S. Shim, Pervaporation of
water–ethanol mixtures through crosslinked and surface-modified
poly(vinylalcohol) membranes, J. Membr. Sci. 51 (1990) 215.
[23] S. Takegami, H. Yamada, S. Tsujii, Dehydration of water/ethanol mix-
tures by pervaporation using modified poly(vinyl alcohol) membrane,
Polym. J. 24 (1992) 1239.
[24] J.W. Rhim, C.K. Yeom, S.W. Kim, Modification of poly(vinyl alcohol)
membranes using sulfur-succinic acid and its application to pervapo
ration separation of water–alcohol mixtures, J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 68
(1998) 1717.
[25] J.W. Rhim, S.W. Lee, Y.K. Kim, Pervaporation separation o
water–ethanol mixtures using metal-ion-exchanged poly(vinyl alcohol
(PVA)/sulfosuccinic acid (SSA) membranes, J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 85
(2002) 1867.
[26] H. Bruschke, Multi-layer membrane and the use thereof for the separation of liquid mixtures according to the pervaporation process, US
Patent 5,156,740 (1992).
[27] W.F. Guo, T.S. Chung, T. Matsuura, Pervaporation study on the dehydra-
tion of aqueous butanol solutions: a comparison of flux vs. permeance
separation factor vs. selectivity, J. Membr. Sci. 245 (2004) 199–210.
[28] W.F. Guo, T.S. Chung, T. Matsuura, R. Wang, Y. Liu, Pervaporation
study of water and tert -butanol mixtures, J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 91 (2004
4082.
[29] X.Y. Qiao, T.S. Chung, W.F. Guo, T. Matsuura, M.M. Teoh, Dehydration
of isopropanol and its comparison with dehydration of butanol isomers
from thermodynamic and molecular aspects, J. Membr. Sci. 252 (2005)
37–49.
[30] H.M. Guan, T.S. Chung, Z. Huang, M.L. Chng, S. Kulprathipanja
Poly(vinyl alcohol) multilayer mixed matrix membranes for the dehy
dration of ethanol–water mixture, J. Membr. Sci., in press.
[31] D.W. Breck, Zeolite Molecule Sieves, John Wiley, New York
1964.
[32] M. Stelzer, M. Paulus, J. Hunger, Weitkamp, Hydrophobic proper
ties of all-silica zeolite beta, Micropor. Mesopor. Mater. 22 (1998
1–8.
[33] S.S.T. Ting, S.J. Macnaughton, D.L. Tomasko, N.R. Foster, Solubility
of naproxen in supercritical carbon dioxide with and without cosolvents
Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 32 (1993) 1471–1481.
[34] Z.F. Wang, B. Wang, X.M. Ding, M. Zhang, L.M. Liu, N. Qi, J.L. Hu
Effect of temperature and structure on the free volume and water vapor
permeability in hydrophilic polyurethanes, J. Membr. Sci. 241 (2004
355–361.
[35] S. Glasstone, K.J. Laidler, H. Eyring, The Theory of Rate Process
McGraw-Hill, New York, 1941.
[36] X.S. Feng, R.Y.M. Huang, Estimation of activation energy for perme-
ation in pervaporation process, J. Membr. Sci. 118 (1996) 127–131.
[37] J.M. Smith, H.C. Van Ness, M.M. Abbott, Introduction to Chemi
cal Engineering Thermodynamics, fifth ed., McGraw-Hill, New York
1996.