By application, the chemical separation membranes market is segmented into membrane distillation, membrane liquid extraction, gas/liquid separation, gas/liquid contacting, gas/gas separation,
pervaporation, and zero liquid discharge.
In this context,
pervaporation with hydrophilic membranes has proved to be a viable technology to supplement traditional processes in ethanol purification, due to the higher selectivity toward water and relatively low energetic operation costs, especially when compared with extractive distillation, since it does not require a solvent.
These polymers may be fabricated into membranes, flat sheets, tubing, or hollow fibers useful for gas separations,
pervaporation, forward osmosis, reverse osmosis, nano filtration, ultra filtration, micro filtration, and pressure-retarded fluid separations.
Lai, Chitosan-silica complex membranes from sulfonic acid functionalized silica nanoparticles for
pervaporation dehydration of ethanol-water solutions.
Jiang, "
Pervaporation separation of ethylene glycol/water mixtures through surface crosslinked PVA membranes: Coupling effect and separation performance analysis," Journal of Membrane Science, vol.
Haga, "Selective aqueous benzene detection at ppb level with portable sensor based on
pervaporation extraction and UV-spectroscopy," Procedia Chemistry, vol.
For this reason, numerous methods have been developed for phenol removal, such as biodegradation, chemical, electrochemical, and photocatalytic oxidation, solid phase extraction, ozonation, liquid-liquid extraction,
pervaporation, and distillation [20], with some problems such as the generation of secondary pollutants and high energy consumption.
They also detail lipids produced by microalgae in the Okinawa area for biodiesel fuel; the use of biomass polymer sheets in water/alcohol
pervaporation as a sustainable source of alcohol energy; bacterial cellulose applications; functional adsorbents made of polymers, ionic liquid, and dendrimer in sustainable technologies; eco-friendly on-site water analyses for ultra-trace harmful ions; and ionic liquids used as green solvent in chemistry.
Membranes obtained from PAN are characterized by high mechanical strength, and therefore they are used in pressure membrane processes: ultrafiltration (UF), nanofiltration (NF), reverse osmosis (RO), and
pervaporation (PV) [13-16].