Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Abstract
1. Introduction
Usually pure polymer could not meet the demand of pervaporation so it needs
modifications to improve its performance. The polymer blend is of great interest as it is
the simplest and easiest way of achieving materials with new desirable properties5.
Several studies on poly(vinyl alcohol)/chitosan (PVA/CS) blending membranes have
been reported6-9. Chitosan forms a clear homogeneous blend with PVA at any blend
ratios. Alternatively, improvement of chitosan membrane performance can also be
obtained by blending it with suitable zeolite-chitosan pairs. Works by Chen and co-
workers10 revealed that the separation factor of chitosan membranes can be successfully
improved by blending it with zeolite HY.
In this work, chitosan membranes prepared from locally-produced shrimp shells were
modified by blending it with PVA and zeolite 13X at varying weight ratios to chitosan. In
the preliminary stage, the optimum chitosan blend ratios were determined. The modified
membranes were further tested for the pervaporation dehydration of isopropanol-water
systems.
2. Experimental
2.1. Materials
Chitosan used in this research is extracted from a local source of shrimp shells using
strong acid and alkaline. Acetic acid, sodium hydroxide, hydrocloric acid, isopropanol
and ethanol are obtained from commercial sources. Poly(vinyl alcohol) with average
molecular weight of 124,000 is purchased from Aldrich Chemical and Zeolite 13X is
purchased from Sigma-Aldrich.
A calculated amount of zeolite was first dispersed in acetic acid solution. Chitosan
solution and zeolites solution were mixed at desired ratios and stirred overnight to form a
homogeneous solution that are ready for casting. The solution was then casted on a petri
dish, allowed to dry under room condition. Finally the dry membrane was peel off from
the petri dish in the similar way as that used in the preparation of homogeneous chitosan
preparation.
whereYH 2O , YIsopropanol and X H 2O , X Isopropanol are the weight fractions of water and
isopropanol in the permeate and feed, respectively.
Circulation
pump
Circulation
pump
Feed
Tank Temperature
1
Heating Tape Controller
Pressure Gauge
Control Valve
Chitosan was blended with PVA at various compositions. All of the blend solutions
were optically clear to the naked eyes. They showed neither separation into two layers
nor any precipitation. So, the blends film were transparent. Pervaporation performance of
CS/PVA blended membranes were tested in the dehydration separation of 90 wt% of
isopropanol in isopropanol-water mixture. Early studies was aimed at finding the optimal
blended composition. The permeation flux and separation factor versus weight fractions
of chitosan are presented in FIGURE 2. As can be seen from the figure, increasing the
chitosan in the blend will result in the increase in the permeation flux since the increase
of chitosan in the blend will act a plasticizer. This will facilitate the permeation of both
components. It is also shown that membrane with composition CS/PVA: 30/70 exhibites
the best trade-off between flux and separation factor suggesting that CS/PVA blend
composition is optimal at 30/70. The membrane was further investigated on its
performance in the pervaporation system for the whole concentration range of
isopropanol in feed for comparative study.
3.2. Pervaporation performance of zeolite-filled chitosan(CS/13X)
180 180
160 160
140 140
Permeation flux, g/m 2 hr
.
120 120
Separation factor
100 Flux 100
Separation factor
80 80
60 60
40 40
20 20
0 0
10 30 50 70 90
Weight percent of chitosan (%)
Figure 2: Effect of chitosan weight percent on flux and separation factor
FIGURE 4 shows the pervaporation separation index (PSI) for homogeneous chitosan,
chitosan/PVA blend and zeolite-filled chitosan membranes respectively. The modified
membranes(CS/PVA and CS/13X) show higher PSI value over the
unmodified(homogeneous chitosan) membrane for the entire feed compositions of
isopropanol-water mixtures. However, a very promising results are exhibited by
membrane CS/13X especially at very high isopropanol concentrations. This membrane
ahows a good potential to be used for the pervaporation dehydration of isopropanol-water
at azeotropic conditions.
700 350
600 300
Permeation
Permeation flux,g/m2.hr
flux 250
500
Separation factor
Separation
factor 200
400
150
300
100
200
50
100 0
0 -50
0.00 4.76 9.09 16.67 23.08 28.57
Zeolite content, wt %
Figure 3: Effect of zeolite content lin CS/13X membranes on permeation flux and separation
factor
100000
Pervaporation separation
index(PSI), g/m2.hr
CS-Homo
80000 CS/PVA
60000 CS/13X
40000
20000
0
10 30 50 70 90 95
Weight percent of isopropanol in feed (%)
Figure 4: Pervaporation separation index for homogeneous chitosan, CS/PVA and CS/13X
membranes
4. Conclusions
In this work, chitosan membranes produced using locally available shrimp shells were
found to be water-selective in the pervaporation separation of isopropanol-water
mixtures. Chitosan membranes were further modified by blending with PVA and the
incorporation of zeolite 13X in the membrane matrix. Both modified membranes:
CS/PVA and CS/13X showed better pervaporation performance than the homogeneous
chitosan membrane. Among them, membranes CS/13X has the best performance
especially at high concentration of isopropanol in the feed.
Acknowledgement
References
[2] Feng, X. and Huang, R.Y.M. Pervaporation With Chitosan Membranes. I. Separation
of Water from Ethylene Glycol by a Chitosan/Polysulphone Composite Membrane.
Journal of Membrane Science, 116: 67-76, 1996.
[5] Paul, D.R., and Newman, S. (Eds.), Polymer Blends, Acedemic Press, New York,
1978.
[6] Wu, Li-Guang, Zhu, Chang-Luo, Moe Liu. Study of a New Pervaporation Membrane.
Part 1. Preparation and Characteristicd f the new Membrane. Journal of Membrane
Science, 90: 199-205, 1994.
[7] Wu, Li-Guang, Zhu, Chang-Luo, Moe Liu. 1994. Study of a New Pervaporation
Membrane. Part 2. Performance Test and Analysis of the New Membrane. Journal of
Membrane Science, 90: 207-212, 1994.
[8] Kim, Jin Hong, Lee, Kim, J Young, Lee, Young Moo, and Kim, Kea Yong. Properties
and Swelling Chaeracteristics of Cross-linked Poly(vinyl alcohol)/Chitosan Blend
Membrane. Journal of Applied Polymer Science. Vol. 45: 1711-1717, 1992.
[9] Mohd. Nawawi, M.G. and Huang, R.Y.M. Pervaporation Dehydration of Isopropanol
with Chitosan Membrane. Journal of. Membrane Science, 124:53-62, 1997.
[10] Chen, X., Yang, H., Gu, Z., and Shao, Z. Preparation and Characterization of HY
Zeolite-filled Chitosan Membranes for Pervaporation Separation. Journal of Membrane
Science, 79: 1144-1149. 2001.