Pervaporation Process for Water/Ethanol Mixture through IPN Membranes

The pervaporation behavior of EtOH/Water mixture through IPN membranes was predicted in this study. The pervaporation characteristics of single polymer membrane were modeled according to the "six-coefficients model" proposed by Brun. In the case of the IPN membrane, two models were proposed according to the phase structure of the IPN. For a uniphase membrane with no phase separation, the compositional average of the single polymer membrane was used. in the case of the phase separated IPN's two cases existed. The first was the island and sea model: in which one phase was continuous and the other was dispersed. The second was the co-continuous model where two continuous phases existed. For these cases, the permeation rate and the separation factor of the IPN membrane were calculated using the experimental sorption data and the cornponent polymer properties. Comparison with the experimental data indicated that these models could be used to predict the performances of IPN membranes depending on the morphology of the IPN.