Pervaporative separation of organic mixtures using dinitrophenyl group-containing cellulose acetate membrane

This paper reports experimental results on pervaporation of benzene/cyclohexane mixtures and xylene isomer mixtures through a fixed-carrier membrane consisting of cellulose acetate (CA) as a base polymer and dinitrophenyl (DNP) group as a selective fixed-carrier. The result of the pervaporation of benzene/cyclohexane mixture using the unmodified CA membrane and the CA-DNP membrane showed that the DNP group was effective to increase the benzene selectivity. In the pervaporation of xylene isomer mixtures, the DNP group selectively facilitated the transport of xylene isomers through the membrane. The order of the preferentially permeating component was p-xylene > m-xylene > o-xylene.