• Clean Technology
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.129-135
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• 2008

Nylon membrane was used to separate ethanol-water by a pervaporation method. Experimental equations were derived to use the simulation of membrane-aided distillation using nylon. The increases in permeation pressure resulted in the decrease in selectivity and energy consumption. The energy cost to enrich ethanol from 94 wt% to 99.5 wt% was calculated to be 53.3 won/kg of ethanol with extractive distillation and 18.9 won/kg of ethanol with a pervaporation method. The saving energy by the pervaporation method is consumed by recycling the permeate residue into the distillation column in the membrane-aided distillation column. Therefore, membrane with the high selectivity to minimize the permeate residue recycle is required to effectively enrich ethanol in the membrane-aided distillation method.