• Membrane Journal
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.54-62
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• 2009

Pervaporation membrane for butanol separation was prepared by hybrid process. Plasma treatment of commercial poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) membrane was attempted and combination of plasma treatment and PDMS solution coating on polysulfone, poly(ether imide) supports were also performed. Plasma treatment of PDMS membrane with hexane and silane group compounds was performed to increase the hydrophobicity of the surface, which enhanced the separation factor upto 12.5 at the expense of flux decrease down to $1.15kg/m^2{\cdot}hr$. Contact angle and relative sorption ratio were also related with hydrophobicity of the memrbane. Increase of PDMS prepolymer composition resulted in dense structure of coating layer with better separation factor. Effects of sequence of PDMS coating vs. plasma treatment were examined. It was found that plasma treatment with butanol and n-hexane plasma followed by PDMS coating showed better performance and vice versa for plasma treatment with hexamethyldisilane and hexamethyldisilazane.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.268-282
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• 2003

Pervaporation-facilitated esterification with slow reaction regime was characterized by using a practical model based on non-perfect separation through membrane. A non-perfect separation in which the membrane is not perfectly permselective to water was applied to the model. Thus, membrane selectivity and membrane capability to remove water were included in the simulation model to explain how they influence the membrane-facilitated reaction process and improve the reactor performance. It was shown by simulation that in the reaction systems with non-perfect separation, reaction completion can hardly be achievable when any reactant at initial molar ratio=1 or the less abundant reactant at initial molar ratio>1 permeates through membrane, and the permeation of ester accelerates the forward reaction md increase reaction conversion at any instant through removal of product species like water. The volume change causes concentrating both reactants and products that affect the reaction with time in opposite ways; reactant-concentrating effect is dominant during the initial stage of reaction, increasing the reaction rate, and then concentrating product influences more reaction by decreasing the reaction rate.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.327-331
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• 2015

Poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) membranes cross-linked with sulfosuccinic acid (SSA) in which poly(4-styrene sulfonic acid-co-maleic acid) (PSSA_MA) was blended to endow more ion exchange capacity were prepared to measure the permselectivities of water-alcohol mixtures by pervaporation separation technique. The feed mixtures of binary aqueous methanol, ethanol and iso-propyl alcohol solution by 90 wt% alcohol portion were used. Typically, for PVA10/SSA9/PSSA_MA90 membrane, the flux of 202.6, 47.8, $20.2g/m^2hr$ for aqueous methanol, ethanol and iso-propyl alcohol solutions was shown while the best separation factors of 34.2, 291 and 991 were given by PVA10/SSA11/PSSA_MA80 membrane. More details are discussed in main text of this article.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.294-305
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• 2008

This study was focused on the investigation of the effects of membrane module configuration and the temperature of feed retentate flowing along with module length on membrane performance through model simulation. A simulation model of pervaporative dehydration through membrane module assemble in which a number of unit modules are connected in parallel or in series has been established. In this study, ethanol/water mixture was used as model mixture. Some of permeation parameters in the model were quantified directly from the real dehydration pervaporation of ethanol through a lab-made membrane. By adopting the coefficients determined empirically the simulation model could be of more practical value. The simulation of pervaporation with two basic module configurations, that is, parallel connection and series connection, could present the importance of process parameters such as feed rate, module connection mode, number of stages, and inter-stage heating.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.44-52
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• 2008

Pervaporation separation for water-ethanol mixtures has been carried out using crosslinked poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) membranes with poly(styrene sulfonic acid-co-maleic acid) (PSSA_MA) and at which tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS) was introduced. The concentration of PSSA_MA was fixed 7 wt% over PVA and the TEOS contents, 3, 5, and 7 wt%, were varied against PVA. The composition of the feed mixtures were 10, 20, 30 and 50 wt% of water in it. PVA/PSSA_MA/5 wt% TEOS membrane showed the separation factor, 1730 and the permeability, $16.3g/m^2{\cdot}hr$ for water : ethanol = 10 : 90 at $50^{\circ}C$.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.279-285
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• 2018

The pervaporation separation of isopropanol/water mixture was carried out on a series of chemically cross-linked poly(vinyl alcohol)(PVA) composite membranes. The membranes were prepared by casting three kinds of PVA solutions with varying concentrations of PVA and GA onto polyacrylonitrile (PAN) support followed by thermal cross linking. As the PVA concentration increased, the flux decreased but separation factor was increased. It was confirmed that the composite membrane coated with PVA-3 (98~99% hydrolyzed) at a concentration of 7 wt% PVA and 20 wt% glutaraldehyde (GA) exhibited a flux of $209g/m^2h$ and a separation factor of more than 100. The submerged module test was carried out with controlled feed tank temperature and IPA concentration of the feed solution. The continuous concentration of IPA solution was increased from 90% to 99% after 60 h.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.250-255
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• 2008

Zeolite A have been known to be chemically, mechanically and thermally quite stable. The ion-exchanged membranes were tested for the removal of water from ethanol/water mixtures by pervaporation. Since it is quite difficult to prepare the potassium form of zeolite A by a direct synthesis, it was obtained by the ion-exchange method from NaA zeolite. The effects of concentration of ethanol at the feed side and the temperature were studied on the permeation flux and the separation factor of water. After $Na^+$ ion was exchanged to $K^+$ ion, it was found that the total flux decreased and the separation factor increased.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.230-234
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• 2006

This study discusses an esterification of trifluoroethanol (TFEA) with methacrylic acid (MA) using acid-resistant PVA pervaporation membrane. The acid-resistant PVA membranes, which were prepared via a thermal cross-linking reaction of PVA and EGDE were adopted in the esterification reaction. The effect of reaction conditions such as temperature, acid catalyst content, and initial molar ratio of TFEA/MA was investigated on the conversion of trifluoroethyl-methacrylate (TFEMA). It was found that TFEMA conversion increased with increasing the reaction temperature, the catalyst content, and the initial molar ratio. The economical conversion of TFEMA more than about 90% was obtained at the following reaction conditions: reaction temperature of $90^{\circ}C$, 2.5 wt% of catalyst and initial molar ratio of 1.7.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.945-953
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• 1997

Aromatic polyetherimide membranes were prepared by dry/wet phase inversion method and investigated regarding the pervaporation characteristic of water-alcohol mixtures by using the permselective property of imide group and the structure modification of skin layer of the membrane. The membrane selectivity increased with the reaction time of surface-modification, to some extent, and the density of top layer tends to increases with increasing the reaction time. In the case of dense membrane, the separation factor was 160 and 2000 for 90wt% ethanol mixture and 90wt% isopropanol solution, respectively, which implies that aromatic polyetherimide has a high permselectivity. The temperature dependence of permeation flux seems to follow an Arrhenius type at the temperature range of ($40^{\circ}C-70^{\circ}C$).

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.469-474
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• 1998

Poly (vinyl alcohol) (PVA) membranes crosslinked with poly (styrene-co-maleic anhydride) (PSMAn) have been prepared by the solution method. To investigate the separation behavior of the crosslinked PVA/PSMAn membranes in the pervaporation process, the selective sorption experiment and swelling measurements of the membranes in ethanol-water mixtures of 30~90 wt % ethanol contents were conducted with equipment that was able to measure the concentration and amount of the liquid absorbed in the membranes. The membranes prepared in this study exhibited good selectivity toward water component in sorption and permeation. Also, in the feed containing ethanol more than 50 wt %, the permeation selectivity of the membrane showed better correlation with the sorption selectivity than that with the swelling ratio changing toward the crosslinking content. This behavior was consistence with a solution-diffusion model correlating permeation and sorption selectivity, and led to the conclusion that the permeation selectivity was determined by sorption step rather than by diffusion step in the membrane.