Pervaporation

Is a method for the separation of

mixtures of liquids by partial
vaporization through a non
porous or porous membrane.

Involves two basic steps...

Firstly the permeation through
the membrane by the permeate
then it's evaporation into the
vapor phase.
Membrane acts as a selective barrier
between two phases... The liquid
phase feed and vapor phase permeate.

It allows the desired components of

the liquid feed to transfer through it by
vaporization.

Separation of components is based on

a difference in transfer rate of
individual component through the
membrane.
Typically, the upstream side of the
membrane is at ambient pressure
and downstream side is under
vacuum to allow the evaporation of
the selective components after
permeation through the membrane.
Driving force for the
separation is the difference in
the partial pressure of the
component on the two sides
and not the volatility difference
of the components in the feed.
 Applications

Pervaporation is effective for

dilute solutions containing
trace or minor amounts of the
components to be removed.
Based on this, hydrophilic
membranes are used for
dehydration of alchols
containing small amounts of
water.
Hydrophobic membranes
are used for removal/
recovery of trace amounts
of organics from aqueous
solution.
• Solvent dehydration
• Continuous ethanol removal from yeast
fermentation
• Continuous water removal from
condensation reactions.
• Removing organic solvents from ind
waste water
• Conc of hydrophobic flavor compds in
aq solutions