Parameter estimation for modelling of organophilic pervaporation

Abstract The work is motivated by an industrial environmental problem, which is ethanol removal from aqueous mixture. To complete this goal organophilic pervaporation of ethanol/water mixture through commercially available Sulzer PERVAP™ 4060 is investigated to obtain information about the removal of ethanol. The experimental results are obtained at different feed ethanol concentrations and temperatures. Our experimental data are evaluated with the semi-empirical pervaporation model (Valentinyi et al. 2013) of our improvement and it is found that the model can be applied also for this organophilic case. Linear and quadratic surfaces suiting (Model III) are also investigated in order to estimate partial permeate flux. The results of parameter estimation and modelling of the pervaporation show that the novel model that considers the concentration dependency of the transport coefficient (Model II) is also capable for the modelling of organophilic pervaporation and results in a better fit to the experimental data, than basic pervaporation model (Model I) and Model III.