Abstract
Separation processes aimed at recovering the solvent from effluent streams offer a means for establishing a circular economy. Conventional technologies such as distillation are energy-intensive, inefficient and suffer from high operating and maintenance costs. Pervaporation based membrane separation overcomes these challenges and in conjunction with the utilization of inorganic membranes derived from non-toxic, sufficiently abundant and hence expendable, silica, allows for high operating temperatures and enhanced chemical and structural integrity. Membrane-based separation is predicted to dominate the industry in the coming decades, as the process is being understood at a deeper level, leading to the fabrication of tailored membranes for niche applications. The current review aims to compile and present the extensive and often dispersive scientific investigations to the reader and highlight the current scenario as well as the limitations suffered by this mature field. In addition, viable alternative to the conventional methodologies, as well as other rival materials in existence to achieve membrane-based pervaporation are highlighted.
Highlights
Solvents are very critical to produce lifesaving drugs, and to manufacture many household products
In contrast to the various competing alternatives such as mixed matrix membranes, which constitute a relatively new field of research and organic membranes, which suffer from various disadvantages thereby reaching saturation in terms of scientific investigation; silica membranes are posed to serve viable and practical applications for large scale industrial exploitation and this is mainly due to the well-established manufacturing techniques, easy characterization and a deeper understanding of the underlying submicroscopic transport phenomenon
The hybrid organic–inorganic membrane synthesized by the collaboration between Universities of Twente and Amsterdam and the WEnergy Research Center of the Netherlands displays remarkable hydrothermal stability, constant and continuous operation exceeding a year at semi-industrial process conditions [78]
Summary
Solvents are very critical to produce lifesaving drugs, and to manufacture many household products. Organic membranes have an advantage of their easy manufacturing ability, they have several disadvantages such as susceptibility to swelling in organic mixtures, dense polymer network, less resilience to temperature, high energy input and a low flux thereby limiting their practical usage These membranes require rigorous additives to ensure their stability against a wide spectrum of feed concentrations. In contrast to the various competing alternatives such as mixed matrix membranes, which constitute a relatively new field of research and organic membranes, which suffer from various disadvantages thereby reaching saturation in terms of scientific investigation; silica membranes are posed to serve viable and practical applications for large scale industrial exploitation and this is mainly due to the well-established manufacturing techniques, easy characterization and a deeper understanding of the underlying submicroscopic transport phenomenon. Silica membranes have a great potential to successfully boom in the industry and the common consumer market for their wide array of applications stemming from the abovementioned main objectives
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