Properties of high flux ceramic pervaporation membranes for dehydration of alcohol/water mixtures

In this paper, a set of performance data of a ceramic pervaporation membrane, provided by ECN, Petten, The Netherlands, is described. For the dehydration of alcohol/water mixtures, these membranes appear to combine high selectivities with high permeabilities, resulting in a high Pervaporation Separation Index (PSI). At 70°C the water flux and separation factor for the dehydration of isopropanol (water concentration varied between 1 and 7 wt.%) range from 0.45 to 2.8 kg/(m2 h), and 340–600, respectively. For the dehydration of n-butanol (water concentration varied between 1 and 5 wt.%) these values are between 0.4 and 2.3 kg/(m2 h) and 680–1340, respectively. These flux values are high as compared with the ceramic pervaporation membranes described in the literature