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J. KASCHEMEKAT
Design Engineer
R.W. BAKER
President
V.L. SIMMONS
Marketing Director
perm
Pervaporation is a membrane process in which a permselective membrane is used to separate mixtures of dissolved
solvents. A liquid mixture contacts one side of a membrane and
is removed as a vapor from the other side. Transport through
the membrane is induced by maintaining the vapor pressure on
the permeate side of the membrane lower than the vapor
pressure of the feed liquid. In the :Jaboratory,
laboratory, the low-pressure
permeate vapor pressure is most conveniently produced with a
vacuum pump. On a commercial scale, however, the vacuum
pumps required would be impossibly large. An attractive
I. is to
alternative to vacuum operations. illustrated in Figure I,
cool the permeate vapor, thus condensing it to a liquid. In this
process, the low pressure on the permeate side is maintained 'by
by
spontaneous condensation of the permeate vapor, and the
permeate vapor pressure is determined by the temperature of
the condensed liquid. This system is preferred in commercial
operations because the cost of providing cooling water for the
condenser is much less than the cost of a vacuum pump. Also, a
system using a condenser is inherently more reliable than one
which requires a vacuum pump.
Purified
feed
Feed
liquid
_ _ Permselective layer
___
_ _ Microporous
support layer
Condensed
permeate
liquid
03B-l
0381 S
108
Proceedings from the 13th National Industrial Energy Technology Conference, Houston, TX, June 12-13, 1991
ESL-IE-91-06-25
Membrane unit
n12
200 rrl2
1000 ppm
benzene
gallday
20,000 gal/day
m.mbt.l1.
26% benzene
75 gal/day
_0.2% benzene
55 gal/day
pervaporati,,"
The opportunities for widespread use of pervaporatit"
to remove organic solvents from aqueous streams can be divl,;~L1
divl.;~L1
into l"ree
Three categories. listed helow
Poilu/ion cOn/rol.
con/rol. This category is characterized by
streams containing low concentrations of hydrophobic solvents.
The objective of the treatment is to lower the solvent
concentration to 10 ppm or less, so that the water can be
discharged or reused. A typical stream might come from a
contaminated surface water or the evaporator condensate from a
chemical plant.
:>99% benzene
20 gpl/day
Figure 3.
3.
REFERENCES
I.
I.
2.
2.
3.
3.
4.
4.
5.
5.
"Selbction
C.-M. Bell, F.-J. Gerner and H. Strathmann, "Selection
J, Memb.
Memb,
of Polymers for Pervaporation Membranes," J.
~,315 (1988).
6.
6.
C.A, Smolders,
Smolders
H.H. Nijhuis, M.H.V. Mulder and C.A.
Removal of
"Selection of Elastomeric Membranes for the Re~oval
Volatile Organic Components from Water," in
Proceedings of the Third International Conference on
Pervaporation in the Chemical Industry, Nancy, France,
R. Bakish (ed.), Bakish Materials, Englewood, NJ
(1988).
109
Proceedings from the 13th National Industrial Energy Technology Conference, Houston, TX, June 12-13, 1991