Use of pervaporation to separate butanol from dilute aqueous solutions: Effects of operating conditions and concentration polarization

This study deals with the separation of n-butanol from aqueous solutions by pervaporation. The effects of feed concentration, temperature, and membrane thickness on the separation performance were investigated. Over the low feed butanol concentration range (0.03–0.4 wt%) studied, the butanol flux was shown to increase proportionally with an increase in the feed butanol concentration, whereas the water flux was relatively constant. An increase in temperature increased both the butanol and water fluxes, and the increase in butanol flux was more pronounced than water flux, resulting in an increase in separation factor. While the permeation flux could be enhanced by reducing the membrane thickness as expected for all rate-controlled processes, the separation factor was compromised when the membrane became thinner. The effect of membrane thickness on the separation performance was analyzed taking into account the boundary layer effect. This could not be fully attributed to the concentration polarization, which was found not significant enough to dominate the mass transport. A variation in the membrane thickness would vary the local concentration of permeant inside the membrane, thereby affecting the permeation of butanol and water differently. Thus, caution should be exercised in using permeation flux normalized by a given thickness to predict the separation performance of a membrane with a different thickness because the membrane selectivity can be affected by the membrane thickness even in the absence of boundary layer effect.