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ABSTRACT
Pervaporation is a separation process for liquid mixtures by selective transfer through an organic or inorganic, porous or dense membrane, whose downstream side is usually maintained under low pressure. Particularly convenient for extracting a minor component, it enables in that case important energy savings compared to distillation. This paper describes its main advantages and the related membranes and separations. Its main industrial applications, the corresponding processes, their simulation and technical-economic analysis are also presented as well as R&D for petrochemistry and biotechnologies.
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Read the articleAUTHORS
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Christophe CASTEL: Professor at ENSIC, Doctor of the Institut National Polytechnique de Lorraine - Laboratoire Réactions et Génie des Procédés, UMR Université de Lorraine-CNRS 7274, Nancy, France
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Éric FAVRE: Professor at ENSIC, Doctor of the Institut National Polytechnique de Lorraine - Laboratoire Réactions et Génie des Procédés, UMR Université de Lorraine-CNRS 7274, Nancy, France
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Sabine RODE: Professor at ENSIC, PhD and HDR from Institut National Polytechnique de Lorraine - Laboratoire Réactions et Génie des Procédés, UMR Université de Lorraine-CNRS 7274, Nancy, France
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Denis ROIZARD: CNRS Research Director, Doctorate from the Institut National Polytechnique de Lorraine - Laboratoire Réactions et Génie des Procédés, UMR Université de Lorraine-CNRS 7274, Nancy, France
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Émilie CARRETIER: Senior Lecturer at the University of Aix-Marseille, Doctorate and HDR from the University Paul Cézanne Aix-Marseille - Laboratoire de Mécanique, Modélisation et Procédés Propres, UMR Université d'Aix-Marseille-CNRS 7340, Marseille, France
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Carole ARNAL-HÉRAULT: Senior Lecturer at ENSIC, Doctorate from the University of Montpellier 2 - Laboratoire de Chimie Physique Macromoléculaire, UMR Université de Lorraine-CNRS 7375, Nancy, France
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Robert CLÉMENT: Senior lecturer at ENSIC, PhD, retired - Laboratoire de Chimie Physique Macromoléculaire, UMR Université de Lorraine-CNRS 7375, Nancy, France
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Anne JONQUIÈRES *: Professor at ENSIC and EEIGM, ENSIC engineer, PhD and HDR from Institut National Polytechnique de Lorraine - Laboratoire de Chimie Physique Macromoléculaire, UMR Université de Lorraine-CNRS 7375, Nancy, France - * Author for correspondence : [email protected]
INTRODUCTION
Developed since the 1960s both in the USA (Dr. Binning) and in Europe (Prof. Néel), pervaporation is historically a process for separating liquid mixtures that takes advantage of the selective transfer of material across a dense polymer membrane. The phenomenon of pervaporation has now been extended to nanoporous inorganic membranes developed by Kita in the 1990s, based on multilayer membranes with a selective NaA zeolite layer. Finally, in an effort to combine the advantages of polymer and inorganic membranes, mixed-matrix membranes are also being produced and used in pervaporation.
During this operation, the flow of material passing through the membrane, known as the permeate, is vaporized and then recovered downstream, usually by condensation on a cold wall. Compared with distillation, pervaporation is particularly interesting for separating compounds with similar volatilities. Whereas distillation in this case requires a large number of plates and a high reflux rate, resulting in high energy consumption linked to successive vaporizations, pervaporation enables the majority of one of the compounds to be separated in a single stage by vaporization through the membrane, preferably the minority compound, as the flow density is low compared with other membrane processes. As a result, this separation method is more energy-efficient than distillation. By exploiting this phenomenon, pervaporation can be used primarily as a purification, extraction or equilibrium displacement process.
Because it generally takes advantage of strong interactions between the membrane and the compounds to be extracted, this process also has a separation selectivity that can be completely different from that of distillation, with which it is often coupled. In this way, pervaporation enables azeotropic mixtures to be fractionated very easily, whereas conventional distillation does not. This technique is used industrially to treat hydroorganic mixtures (dehydration of solvents and extraction of organic compounds), but its ability to separate entirely organic mixtures has also already been demonstrated at the industrial stage. Combined with other processes, pervaporation can often be optimized to achieve significant savings in energy and raw materials, while reducing the infrastructure of conventional plants, or limiting pollution linked to the addition of volatile third parties and liquid effluents.
The result of collaboration between three French laboratories renowned for their complementary skills in this field, this article presents pervaporation in a cross-disciplinary way, covering a variety of multidisciplinary aspects. First, the general principles of pervaporation and the different materials used for membrane construction are described, along with the main industrial...
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KEYWORDS
membrane | extraction | separation | distillation | selective transfer
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Unit operations. Chemical reaction engineering
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Pervaporation
Main features of pervaporation
Bibliography
Research centers
French laboratories involved in pervaporation and vapor permeation
Laboratoire Réactions et Génie des Procédés, UMR7274 (École nationale supérieure des industries chimiques; Nancy)
Macromolecular Physical Chemistry Laboratory, UMR7375 (École nationale supérieure des industries chimiques;...
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