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Membrane Separations, Membrane Filtrations, Pervaporation, and Modeling of Membrane Separation

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A special issue of Membranes (ISSN 2077-0375). This special issue belongs to the section "Membrane Processing and Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 October 2020) | Viewed by 18950

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Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Peter Mizsey

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Guest Editor

Department of Fine Chemicals and Environmental Technology with Kiss Chemicals, University of Miskolc, Miskolc-Egyetemváros A/2, H-3515 Miskolc, Hungary
Interests: membrane separations; membrane filtrations; pervaporation; modeling of pervaporation; combination of pervaporation with other separation methods such as distillation
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Membrane separation methods have been conquering newer and newer areas, where they find successful applications. In spite of this, classical membrane filtration is a mature technology that is still under development to improve its attractive features. New membranes continually appear on the market offering better and better solutions. Pervaporation, a relatively new area of membrane separation, gains profit from such developments and finds new application areas. At present, the different membrane separation alternatives are so developed that they are competing with each other, such as membrane filtration and pervaporation.

The introduction of hybrid separation alternatives, where different separation methods are combined such as distillation and pervaporation, offer special and powerful separation options which could not even be imagined without their combination. The hybrid separation alternatives strengthen the need for reliable modeling of membrane separations. More accurate models are needed even by professional flowsheeting simulators, where they have already found the beginning of their application.

This Special Issue on “Membrane Separations, Membrane Filtrations, Pervaporation, and Modeling of Membrane Separation” of the journal Membranes seeks contributions to assess the state-of-the-art and future developments in the field of these areas. Scientific contributions are welcome that deal with the introduction of successful both scientific and industrial applications of membrane separations. General ideas and new, preferably thermodynamic-based models are also welcome in this Special Issue which can be applied even in professional flowsheeting simulators. The modeling and comparison of hybrid separation methods are also welcome in the journal Membranes. Authors are invited to submit their latest research results or successful applications. Both original papers and reviews are welcome.

Prof. Dr. Peter Mizsey
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Membranes is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

membrane separations
membrane filtrations
pervaporation
modeling of membrane separation

Related Special Issue

Membrane Separations, Membrane Filtrations, Pervaporation, and Modeling of Membrane Separation, Volume II in Membranes

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

23 pages, 4772 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Effects of PEI Hollow Fiber Substrate Characteristics on PDMS/PEI Hollow Fiber Membranes for CO₂/N₂ Separation

by Guoqiang Li, Wojciech Kujawski, Katarzyna Knozowska and Joanna Kujawa

Membranes 2021, 11(1), 56; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/membranes11010056 - 14 Jan 2021

Cited by 17 | Viewed by 3939

Abstract

The CO₂ separation from flue gas based on membrane technology has drawn great attention in the last few decades. In this work, polyetherimide (PEI) hollow fibers were fabricated by using a dry-jet-wet spinning technique. Subsequently, the composite hollow fiber membranes were prepared by dip coating of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) selective layer on the outer surface of PEI hollow fibers. The hollow fibers spun from various spinning conditions were fully characterized. The influence of hollow fiber substrates on the CO₂/N₂ separation performance of PDMS/PEI composite membranes was estimated by gas permeance and ideal selectivity. The prepared composite membrane where the hollow fiber substrate was spun from 20 wt% of dope solution, 12 mL/min of bore fluid (water) flow rate exhibited the highest ideal selectivity equal to 21.3 with CO₂ permeance of 59 GPU. It was found that the dope concentration, bore fluid flow rate and bore fluid composition affect the porous structure, surface morphology and dimension of hollow fibers. The bore fluid composition significantly influenced the gas permeance and ideal selectivity of the PDMS/PEI composite membrane. The prepared PDMS/PEI composite membranes possess comparable CO₂/N₂ separation performance to literature ones. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Membrane Separations, Membrane Filtrations, Pervaporation, and Modeling of Membrane Separation)

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16 pages, 3438 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Pervaporative Dehydration of Methanol Using PVA/Nanoclay Mixed Matrix Membranes: Experiments and Modeling

by Asmaa Selim, András Jozsef Toth, Daniel Fozer, Agnes Szanyi and Péter Mizsey

Membranes 2020, 10(12), 435; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/membranes10120435 - 17 Dec 2020

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2576

Abstract

Encouraged by the industrial problem of removing water from methanol solutions, a simple exfoliation method is applied to prepare polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)/laponite nanoclay mixed matrix membranes (MMMs). The membranes are used for the pervaporative dehydration of the methanol-water solution. The influence of the nanoclay content on the pervaporation performance is investigated. The results show that the PVA10 membrane containing 10 wt% Laponite loading exhibits excellent separation efficiency; therefore, all the experimental work is continued using the same membrane. Additionally, the effects of feed concentration and temperature on methanol dehydration performance are thoroughly investigated. The temperatures are ranging from 40–70 °C and the water feed concentrations from 1–15 wt% water. A maximum separation factor of 1120 can be observed at 40 °C and the feed water concentration of 1 wt%. Remarkably, two solution–diffusion models, the Rautenbach (Model I) and modified method by Valentínyi et al. (Model II), are used and compared to evaluate and describe the pervaporation performance of the mixed matrix membrane. Model II proves to be more appropriate for the modeling of pervaporative dehydration of methanol than Model I. This work demonstrates that PVA/nanoclay mixed matrix membranes prepared can efficiently remove water from methanol aqueous solution with pervaporation and the whole process can be accurately modeled with Model II. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Membrane Separations, Membrane Filtrations, Pervaporation, and Modeling of Membrane Separation)

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12 pages, 1158 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Improvement of Component Flux Estimating Model for Pervaporation Processes

by Botond Szilagyi and Andras Jozsef Toth

Membranes 2020, 10(12), 418; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/membranes10120418 - 13 Dec 2020

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2350

Abstract

Separating non-ideal mixtures by pervaporation (hence PV) is a competitive alternative to most traditional methods, such as distillation, which are based on the vapour–liquid equilibrium (VLE). It must be said, in many cases, accurate VLE data are already well known in the literature. They make the method of PV modelling a lot more complicated, and most of the viable models are (semi)empirical and focus on component flux (J_i) estimation. The pervaporation model of Mizsey and Valentinyi, which is based on Rautenbach’s works, is further improved in this work and tested rigorously by statistical means. Until now, this type of exponential modelling was only used for alcohol–water mixtures, but in this work, it was extended to an ethyl acetate–water binary mixture as well. Furthermore, a flowchart of modelling is presented for the first time in the case of an exponential pervaporation model. The results of laboratory-scale experiments were used as the basis of the study and least squares approximation was used to compare them to the different model’s estimations. According to our results, Valentinyi’s model (Model I) and the alternative model (Model III) appear to be the best methods for PV modelling, and there is no significant difference between the models, mainly in organophilic cases. In the case of the permeation component, Model I, which better follows the exponential function, is recommended. It is important to emphasize that our research confirms that the exponential type model seems to be universally feasible for most organic–water binary mixtures. Another novelty of the work is that after PDMS and PVA-based membranes, the accuracy of the semiempirical model for the description of water flux on a PEBA-based membrane was also proved, in the organophilic case. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Membrane Separations, Membrane Filtrations, Pervaporation, and Modeling of Membrane Separation)

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18 pages, 4142 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Separation of Alcohol-Water Mixtures by a Combination of Distillation, Hydrophilic and Organophilic Pervaporation Processes

by Huyen Trang Do Thi, Peter Mizsey and Andras Jozsef Toth

Membranes 2020, 10(11), 345; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/membranes10110345 - 16 Nov 2020

Cited by 13 | Viewed by 6332

Abstract

It can be stated that in the fine chemical industries, especially in the pharmaceutical industry, large amounts of liquid waste and industrial waste solvents are generated during the production technology. Addressing these is a key issue because their disposal often accounts for the largest proportion of the cost of the entire technology. There is need to develop regeneration processes that are financially beneficial to the plant and, if possible, reuse the liquid waste in the spirit of a circular economy, in a particular technology, or possibly elsewhere. The distillation technique proves to be a good solution in many cases, but in the case of mixtures with high water content and few volatile components, this process is often not cost-effective due to its high steam consumption, and in the case of azeotropic mixtures there are separation constraints. In the present work, the membrane process considered as an alternative; pervaporation is demonstrated through the treatment of low alcohol (methanol and ethanol) aqueous mixtures. Alcohol-containing process wastewaters were investigated in professional process simulator environment with user-added pervaporation modules. Eight different methods were built up in ChemCAD flowsheet simulator: organophilic pervaporation (OPV), hydrophilic pervaporation (HPV), hydrophilic pervaporation with recirculation (R-HPV), dynamic organophilic pervaporation (Dyn-OPV), dynamic hydronophilic pervaporation (Dyn-HPV), hybrid distillation-organophilic pervaporation (D + OPV), hybrid distillation-hydrophilic pervaporation (D + HPV), and finally hybrid distillation-hydrophilic pervaporation with recirculation (R-D + HPV). It can be stated the last solution in line was the most suitable in the terms of composition, however distillation of mixture with high water content has significant heat consumption. Furthermore, the pervaporation supplemented with dynamic tanks is not favourable due to the high recirculation rate in the case of tested mixtures and compositions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Membrane Separations, Membrane Filtrations, Pervaporation, and Modeling of Membrane Separation)

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11 pages, 2763 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Tailoring Charged Nanofiltration Membrane Based on Non-Aromatic Tris(3-aminopropyl)amine for Effective Water Softening

by Pengrui Jin, Michiel Robeyn, Junfeng Zheng, Shushan Yuan and Bart Van der Bruggen

Membranes 2020, 10(10), 251; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/membranes10100251 - 24 Sep 2020

Cited by 16 | Viewed by 3005

Abstract

High-performance positively-charged nanofiltration (NF) membranes have a profound significance for water softening. In this work, a novel monomer, tris(3-aminopropyl)amine (TAEA), with one tertiary amine group and three primary amine groups, was blended with trace amounts of piperazine (PIP) in aqueous solution to fabricate a positively-charged NF membrane with tunable performance. As the molecular structures of TAEA and PIP are totally different, the chemical composition and structure of the polyamine selective layer could be tailored via varying the PIP content. The resulting optimal membrane exhibited an excellent water permeability of 10.2 LMH bar⁻¹ and a high rejection of MgCl₂ (92.4%), due to the incorporation of TAEA/PIP. In addition, this TAEA NF membrane has a superior long-term stability. Thus, this work provides a facile way to prepare a positively charged membrane with an efficient water softening ability. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Membrane Separations, Membrane Filtrations, Pervaporation, and Modeling of Membrane Separation)

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