Pervaporation of toluene and iso-octane through poly(vinyl alcohol)/graphene oxide nanoplate mixed matrix membranes: Comparison of crosslinked and noncrosslinked membranes

Effect of Phase Heterogeneity on the Properties of Poly(vinyl alcohol)-Based Composite Pervaporation Membranes

The structure, thermophysical characteristics, and pervaporation properties of composite membranes based on poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) are studied in dependence of the film preparation conditions. It is shown that the nature of the supramolecular organization of the composite polymer film determines which of the components of the separated mixtures of toluene and heptane predominantly penetrate through the corresponding pervaporation membrane. The observed structural effects can become more pronounced if the second component of a polymer mixture is purposefully selected (in this case, poly(N,N-dimethylaminoethyl methacrylate) instead of poly(acrylic acid)) or a nano-sized filler that can be well dispersed in the polymer matrix is introduced. Multi-wall carbon nanotubes are introduced into binary PVA-containing polymer blends. The influence of these fillers on the structure and transport properties of the obtained membranes is studied.

Studies on sorption kinetics and sorption isotherm for pervaporative separation of benzene from model pyrolysis gasoline using insitu nano silver/polyvinyl alcohol membrane

Pyrolysis gasoline (Py gas) is used as an octane enhancer of gasoline as it is rich in aromatics. However, removal of carcinogenic benzene from Py gas before blending with gasoline is important to meet the fuel specifications. The main focus of this present study is to determine the sorption kinetics and sorption isotherm of a fabricated insitu nano silver/polyvinyl alcohol (insitu nano Ag/PVA) membrane for pervaporative separation of benzene from model Py gas [mixture of benzene (aromatic) and 1-octene (aliphatic)]. The thickness, surface morphological structure (Atomic Force Microscopy) and degree of swelling of the fabricated membrane were determined. The highest pervaporation separation index achieved for the selected system was 14.259 kg/m²/h at 303 K, with 30 volume% benzene in model Py gas using a downstream pressure of 1 mm of Hg. The sorption kinetics of benzene in insitu nano Ag/PVA membrane obeyed the Elovich model while the Temkin isotherm model fitted the experimental data of the chosen system most accurately.