Abstract
Membrane methods, especially pervaporation, are quickly growing up. In line with that, effective membrane materials based on biopolymers are required for the industrially significant mixtures separation. To essentially improve membrane transport characteristics, the application of the surface or/and bulk modifications can be carried out. In the present study, novel dense and supported membranes based on hydroxyethyl cellulose (HEC)/sodium alginate (SA) were developed for pervaporation dehydration of isopropanol using several approaches: (1) the selection of the optimal ratio of polymers, (2) the introduction of fullerenol in blend polymer matrix, (3) the selection of the optimal cross-linking agent for the membranes, (4) the application of layer-by-layer deposition of polyelectrolytes on supported membrane surface (poly(sodium 4-styrenesulfonate) (PSS)/poly(allylamine hydrochloride) (PAH) and PSS/SA). Structural and physicochemical characteristics of the membranes were analyzed by different methods. A cross-linked supported membrane based on HEC/SA/fullerenol (5%) composite possessed the following transport characteristics in pervaporation dehydration of isopropanol (12–50 wt.% water): 0.42–1.72 kg/(m2h) permeation flux, and 77.8–99.99 wt.% water content in the permeate. The surface modification of this membrane with 5 bilayers of PSS/PAH and PSS/SA resulted in the increase of permeation flux up to 0.47–3.0 and 0.46–1.9 kg/(m2h), respectively, with lower selectivity.
Highlights
From the point of view of environmental impact, industry is one of the most dangerous human activities
The additional improvement of transport characteristics of supported membranes was achieved by layer-by-layer assembly with the deposition of the polyelectrolyte layers (Section 3.3.2)
Novel highly efficient membranes based on polymer blend hydroxyethyl cellulose (HEC)/sodium alginate (SA) for pervaporation dehydration were developed using bulk and surface modifications
Summary
From the point of view of environmental impact, industry is one of the most dangerous human activities. In this regard, the control conditions for the industrial development becomes ever more stringent, and the industry is constantly improving its production methods by the use of novel technologies to improve the efficiency and productivity of processes, and make them economically beneficial and environmentally friendly. One of the most advanced and rapidly developing separation technologies are membrane processes, which are referred to as sustainable processes due to their characteristics: low energy consumption, high selectivity of processes, environmental friendliness, compact modular equipment, and easy automation. Pervaporation, a membrane process capable of the separation of liquid mixtures containing low molecular weight substances, gains steadily growing attention. A very important direction for application of pervaporation is the dehydration of alcohols [2,3]
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