Assessment of pervaporative separation of methyl acetate and methanol using organophilic membranes

•Organophilic pervaporation of methyl acetate and methanol was investigated.•Four commercially available membranes were tested.•The active membrane material was polydimethylsiloxane and polyoctylmethylsiloxane.•The POMS-based membrane could be used to separate the binary mixture.•The separation capability of PDMS membranes lay below that of flash distillation.

The separation performance efficiencies of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-based (PERVAP™ 4060, PDMS 04-075, and PDMS 04-123) and polyoctylmethylsiloxane (POMS)-based (POMS 05-119) organophilic composite membranes were investigated, examining the amount of methyl acetate recovered from binary methyl acetate-methanol mixtures. The effects of feed composition (at 50 °C) and feed temperature (40 °C, 50 °C, and 60 °C) were investigated. Based on temperature variation tests, the enthalpies of evaporation for methyl acetate and methanol were estimated. Additionally, an empirical model was built on the basis of the solution-diffusion transport equation and extended to account for swelling characteristics of the membrane.Whereas the membrane POMS 05-119 can be applied under the conditions described, particularly when the goal is to overcome the azeotropic barrier, separation performance of the PDMS-based membranes was inferior to the performance of a conventional flash distillation method.