Mass-production of tubular NaY zeolite membranes for industrial purpose and their application to ethanol dehydration by vapor permeation

Dehydration of hydrous ethanol by vapor permeation for the present membranes was studied at 90-110 °C to investigate an applicability of these membranes to ethanol purification. The ethanol products with concentration up to 98.5 wt.% and with 96.1 wt.% could be obtained at 110 °C by production rates at 5 kg h−1 and 20 kg h−1, respectively. It is also confirmed that concentration polarization could limit the permeation fluxes through the present high-performance membranes for the feed flow rates at 5.5-22 kg h−1 with the Reynolds number of 5000-20,000.