Ethanol purification using carbon nanotube-filled polydimethylsiloxane mixed matrix membranes

In recent years, with increasing environmental pollution, decreasing oil sources and rising oil price, one of the challenges facing humankind is the use of other energy sources especially renewable sources such as ethanol. Different methods such as distillation are available for the separation of ethanol mixtures, but membrane process is one of the most attractive methods for this purpose, because it is economical, low energy consumption and effective.Among membrane processes, pervaporation (PV) is one of the most popular methods due to its simple operational conditions and low energy consumption. Over the last few decades, different polymers have been used as materials in membrane preparation for pervaporation process, which are currently used in the preparation of mixed matrix membranes for ethanol purification. In present work, neat PDMS membrane and mixed matrix PDMS membrane filled with CNT (۰.۵ wt%) nanoparticles were synthesized. The membranes were analyzed using FTIR and XRD. The bonding of groups in CNT and polymer was characterized and confirmed using FTIR test. Pervaporation tests indicated that the membrane with ۰.۵% CNT showed better ethanol selectivity of ۱۵.۳۵ in synthetic ethanol-water solution.

Keywords:

Ethanol water separation , pervaporation , PDMS/CNT nanocomposite membrane , membrane process.