Zohreh Raeisi - Department of Chemistry, Dehloran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Dehloran, Iran
Laleh Hosseinzadeh - Department of Chemistry, Dehloran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Dehloran, Iran
Ahmad Moheb - Department of Chemical Engineering, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan ۸۴۱۵۶۸۳۱۱۱, Iran
Morteza Sadeghi - Department of Chemical Engineering, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan ۸۴۱۵۶۸۳۱۱۱, Iran

Dehydration of alcohols has attracted a great deal of attention owing to its wide application in ‎several medical, pharmaceutical and chemical industries. High separation efficiency, low energy ‎consumption, simplicity and minimum contamination are the main characteristics which make ‎pervaporation (PV) a promising method in the area of alcohol dehydration to provide extremely ‎pure alcohols. Due to their permselectivity and high processability, polymers are the main ‎materials for PV membranes. For this purpose, poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) is the most commonly ‎used polymer because of its desired hydrophilicity, flexibility, good film-forming ability and low ‎cost. However, excessive swelling is the main challenge in fabrication of PVA membranes for ‎dehydration application; to overcome this disadvantage, various attempts have been made to ‎modify PVA membranes for separation of water and alcohols. In this paper, various ‎modifications and developments that have been made to improve the PV performance of PVA-‎based membranes for separation of water and alcohols have been reviewed.‎

Separation, Alcohols, Poly(vinyl alcohol), Membrane, dehydration