Pervaporation dehydration of ethanol-water mixture using crosslinked poly(vinyl alcohol) membranes

Abstract

Crosslinked poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) composite membranes were synthesized by casting selective crosslinked PVA films on the polyacrylonitrile (PAN) porous substrates. The PVA films were prepared by in-situ crosslinking technique using four different crosslinking agents, such as glutaraldehyde, fumaric acid, maleic acid and malic acid. The separation performance in terms of permeation flux and separation factor of prepared membranes were evaluated for pervaporation dehydration of ethanol/water mixture of 80/20 wt% at 60 ^oC. The prepared membranes were also characterized by FTIR, SEM, swelling and sessile drop contact angle measurements. It was found that the chemical structure of the PVA membrane was changed via crosslinking reaction. The physicochemical properties (hydrophilicity and swelling degree) and separation performance of the prepared membranes were affected by the chemical structures of the crosslinking agents. Furthermore, there was a trade-off between permeation flux and selectivity of the resulting membranes. When the flux increased, the separation factor decreased. The results of this study contributed to enrich the data of the crosslinking reaction of PVA membranes, and expected to help researcher in suitable choosing crosslinking agent for producing pervaporation PVA membrane for dehydration of ethanol solutions.