A study of permeation of organic solvents through polymeric membranes based on polymeric alloys of polyphosphonates and acetyl cellulose. II. Separation of benzene, cyclohexene, and cyclohexane

Abstract

Membranes prepared from polymeric alloys of polyphosphonates and acetyl cellulose are highly permeable to benzene and the cyclohexene, but practically impermeable to the aliphatic hydrocarbons cyclohexane and decalin. Pervaporation and osmotic distillation techniques were used in order to achieve separation of the benzene–cyclohexane mixtures. The flux of the permeate increases sharply with increasing temperature, concentration of benzene in the feed solution, and fraction of polyphosphonate in the membrane. The increase of permeate flux is accompanied by a slight decrease of the separation factors. The permeation characteristics of the membranes were compared with those predicted from the results of sorption experiments. The agreement between the observed and the predicted fluxes and separation factors indicates that the permeation mechanism can be described in terms of molecular diffusion. The high selectivity of the membranes makes possible the development of a novel “osmotic distillation” technique. Such a technique, which combines osmotic permeation of organic liquids with conventional distillation, may be advantageous in the separations of azeotropic mixtures.