A hydrophobic pervaporation membrane with hierarchical microporosity for high-efficient dehydration of alcohols. (12th October 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Liu, Peng; Chen, Mengmeng; Ma, Yiqiang; Hu, Chuan; Zhang, Qiugen; Zhu, Aimei; Liu, Qinglin
• Is Part Of: Chemical engineering science. Volume 206(2019)
• Page Start: 489
• Page End: 498
• Publication Date: 2019-10-12
• Subjects: Pervaporation -- Organic dehydration -- Polymeric membrane -- Polymer of intrinsic microporosity; Chemical engineering -- Periodicals; Génie chimique -- Périodiques; Chemical engineering; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 660
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ces.2019.05.057
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0009-2509

Abstract

Graphical abstract: Highlights: A synthetic strategy for hydrophobic polymer pervaporation membrane is presented. The membrane has the hierarchical structure of micropores-micropores-mesopores. The membrane shown high permeability and selectivity for dehydration of alcohols. Abstract: Pervaporation is a promising membrane technology for separation of aqueous organic solution particularly azeotrope and close-boiling point compounds. However, most of pervaporation membranes are based on hydrophilic polymers that suffer decline of separation performance due to their swelling in aqueous solution. Here we present a copolymer synthetic strategy for preparation of hydrophobic polymer pervaporation membrane with hierarchical porosity via uniting both rigid and flexible segments. The synthesized membrane has well-defined micropores and high free volume faction of 8.03% with cavity size of 0.476 nm, and demonstrate exceptional performance with high permeability and selectivity for dehydration of alcohols. In the pervaporation of ethanol-water azeotrope, the membrane displays the high permeabtion flux of 74.6 μm kg m −2 h −1 and water selectivity of 34 (separation factor of 732) at 30 °C. The developed strategy has excellent potential for synthesizing copolymers for high-efficient pervaporation membranes.