Pressure Effects on the Kinetic Separation of Isopropyl Alcohol-Water Vapor Mixtures with FricDiff

Abstract

Accurate experimental data are presented on the kinetic separation of isopropyl alcohol-water vapor mixtures with pure nitrogen as separating agent using FricDiff technology, which is based on differences in diffusion velocities of the mixture components in the separating agent. The influence of pressure differences over the macro-porous barrier on the separation process in a FricDiff module is studied under various operating conditions, including varying molar flow rate of the feed mixture, varying ratio between inlet molar flow rates of feed mixture, and separating agent and varying composition of the feed mixture. The experimental results are compared to data generated with a model. Because this work presents the first dataset where pressure differences are measured with sufficient accuracy, it is in fact the first rigorous comparison between FricDiff models and experiments. It is generally found that the trends observed in the experiments are well described by the model.