Progress in Filtration and Separation

2. Fundamentals of Pervaporation

The selectivity in pervaporation originates from different affinities for the membrane material among components of the feed mixture, and differences in permeation rate by diffusion. During transport, evaporation of the permeating compounds occurs; the heat of vaporization has to be supplied by the feed, which causes a temperature drop. As shown in Figure 1, heat may be supplied by intermediate heat exchangers installed between a number of pervaporation modules in series, for an industrial set-up of pervaporation.

In the absence of coupling effects, transport through a pervaporation membrane is typically described by the solution-diffusion model (Wijmans and Baker, 1995). This model describes mass transport of a ...