Concentrating ethanol in fermentation broths and maintaining continuous production is of great importance in the production of renewable ethanol biofuels. Ethanol removal by pervaporation process is a newly emerged technology which has been arose much attention due to its low cost and environmental benignity. Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) pervaporation membranes are employed to remove ethanol from aqueous solution. A profound understanding of mass transfer in separation membranes is required for membrane performance improvement. In this article, a predictive model based on solution-diffusion mechanism was proposed to predict mass transfer during pervaporation process. The activity of penetrants in the polymer membrane was calculated by UNIFAC-ZM model, which required no specific parameters of mixture. A modified Fujita temperature-dependent diffusion model was developed to describe the diffusion behavior of the penetrants. The flux and separation factor of various feed concentration and operating temperatures were investigated to validate the model. The results showed that the prediction was in good agreement with the experimental values. The authors greatly appreciate the financial supports of the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (No. 2012AA03A607), National Natural Science Foundation of China (21176135), the Special funds for technological development research of Research Institutes and Universities from National Ministry of Science and Technology (2013EG111129).

Modified solution-diffusion model for pervaporation separation of water/ethanol with PDMS membrane

247th National Meeting (2014)

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