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Review
. 2023 Oct 23;13(10):848.
doi: 10.3390/membranes13100848.

Ongoing Progress on Pervaporation Membranes for Ethanol Separation

Muhammad Imad  1   2 , Roberto Castro-Muñoz  3   4
Affiliations
Review

Ongoing Progress on Pervaporation Membranes for Ethanol Separation

Muhammad Imad et al. Membranes (Basel). .

Abstract

Ethanol, a versatile chemical extensively employed in several fields, including fuel production, food and beverage, pharmaceutical and healthcare industries, and chemical manufacturing, continues to witness expanding applications. Consequently, there is an ongoing need for cost-effective and environmentally friendly purification technologies for this organic compound in both diluted (ethanol-water-) and concentrated solutions (water-ethanol-). Pervaporation (PV), as a membrane technology, has emerged as a promising solution offering significant reductions in energy and resource consumption during the production of high-purity components. This review aims to provide a panorama of the recent advancements in materials adapted into PV membranes, encompassing polymeric membranes (and possible blending), inorganic membranes, mixed-matrix membranes, and emerging two-dimensional-material membranes. Among these membrane materials, we discuss the ones providing the most relevant performance in separating ethanol from the liquid systems of water-ethanol and ethanol-water, among others. Furthermore, this review identifies the challenges and future opportunities in material design and fabrication techniques, and the establishment of structure-performance relationships. These endeavors aim to propel the development of next-generation pervaporation membranes with an enhanced separation efficiency.

Keywords: emerging materials; ethanol upgrading; membrane process; molecular separations.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Schematic illustration of the pervaporation separation process [8].
Figure 2
Figure 2
Mechanism of transport channels occurring in various membrane materials in PV technology [25].
Figure 3
Figure 3
Schematic illustrations of the application of pure MOF-based membranes in pervaporation for the recovery of ethanol from aqueous solutions, (a) hypothetical mechanism of transport, (b) water and ethanol adsorption capacity, and (c) pervaporation separation performance (ethanol–water (10:90 wt.%) at 323 K). Adapted from [115].
Figure 4
Figure 4
COF/SA MMM: schematic of the membrane structure and transport of water and ethanol [130].
Figure 5
Figure 5
(a) Graphical depiction of SNW-1/Cs MMMs onto alumina support, (b) their separation performance for the dehydration of ethanol, and (c) long-term operation. Adapted from [132].
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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