Preparation of nano-zeolite tubular membrane for ethylbenzene separation from ternary mixed xylene by microwave functional coating method

The ethylbenzene separation from mixed xylene is one of the critical issues in the chemical industry. In this study, separation of ethylbenzene from ternary xylene mixtures system [ethylbenzene (EB), para-xylene (PX) and meta-xylene (MX)] was performed using a nano-zeolite coated tubular membrane system. Nano-zeolite membranes with different Si/Al ratios (Si/Al = 30, 100 and ∞) were prepared by a microwave hydrothermal method and the separation performance was compared. MFI-type nano-zeolite membranes were synthesized on alumina tubes from the randomly oriented seed layers by dip coating and functional coating using 3-chloropropyltrimethoxysilane, respectively. After the microwave-assisted secondary growth, it was observed that thinner layers of nano-zeolites were prepared by functional coating (3–4 μm) compared to the typical dip coating (6–8 μm). Ethylbenzene separation tests were performed using a comparatively high EB-containing ternary mixture feed (EB/PX/MX = 80/5/15 molar ratio). The silicalite-1 (Si/Al ratio = ∞) membrane with a functional layer shows the best ethylbenzene separation factor of 3.11 from the high EB-containing ternary mixture feed (ethylbenzene flux: 1,010.6 mol/m2 s Pa ×10−10).