Separation of Ethanol/Water (Azeotropic mixture) by Pervaporation using PVA Membrane

Abstract

In present work Poly vinyl alcohol (PVA) membrane was used for separation of ethanol-water mixture. Pervaporation has significant advantages and great potential for separation of azeotropic mixtures where traditional distillation can recover pure solvents with the use of entrainers, which then must be removed using an additional separation step. In present study, experiment were conducted over a wide range of temperature (45-75 °C) and water concentration (6.25-14.34 wt%). In this study it is observed that there is good separation of ethanol-water is possible with this membrane. The Effects of temperature, Solution concentration on flux selectivity, Permeation separation factor (PSI) and enrichment factor are investigated via experiments and model prediction.