1

Effect of operating conditions on pervaporation of methanol–water

mixtures: Part 1

 Ali Bakhshi and Toraj Mohammadi, Omid Ghaffari Nik , and Abdolreza Aroujalian

This article provides details of a study that investigated the effect of operating conditions on the pervaporation of methanol–water mixtures. Part 1, which appears here, offers an introduction and describes the experimental set-up. The second part, which will be published in the December 2006 issue of Membrane Technology, will set out and discuss the results of this research

In this study a hydrophobic flat-thin composite polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) membrane was used for the separation of methanol–water mixtures by pervaporation (PV).

The effect of feed composition, feed temperature, feed flow-rate and duration time on the separation performance was investigated. The results showed that increasing the feed methanol concentration from 0.3 wt% to 3 wt%, at different operating temperatures (30–50°C), increases total permeation flux up to 20%. It was shown that increasing feed methanol concentration decreases the separation factor of methanol by about 75%. The results also showed that increasing operating temperature from 30–50°C, at different feed concentrations (0.3–3 wt%), increases total permeation flux up to 300%.