Pervaporation of Ethanol/Water Mixtures through a High-silica MFI Membrane: Comparison of Different Semi-empirical Mass Transfer Models

Pervaporation of binary ethanol/water solutions of 5–10 wt.% ethanol was studied experimentally through a thin supported high-silica MFI zeolite membrane of hydrophobic character in the temperature range of 30–70 °C. The fluxes obtained were very high, 2–14 kg m -2 h -1 with ethanol/water separation factors of 4–7. The loss of effective driving force was significant in the supporting layers, which limited the membrane performance. The correlation between the experimental data and three different semi-empirical mass-transfer models was examined. The correlation was good especially when the driving force for mass-transfer was determined based solely on bulk feed, or the bulk feed and permeate conditions together. Somewhat lower correlation was observed when the driving force was corrected with the effect of support resistance. This was most likely due to the inaccuracies of the used mass transfer parameters in the support. The investigated semi-empirical models can be applied for initial stage process design purposes.