Pervaporation of Organic Liquids from Binary Aqueous Mixtures using Poly(trifluoropropylmethylsiloxane) and Poly(dimethylsiloxane) Dense Membranes

In this work we have compared and contrasted the pervaporation behaviour (separation factor and flux) of fluorosilicone dense membranes based on poly(trifluoropropylmethylsiloxane) (PTFPMS) with poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) dense membranes. In particular, pervaporation experiments were carried out at 298 K using lab-made PTFPMS, lab-made PDMS and commercial PDMS membranes in order to remove three different organic liquids pyridine (PY), isopropanol (IPA) and methylethylketone (MEK) from dilute (<10 wt.%) binary aqueous mixtures. All of the silicone membranes studied were found to be successful for the desired separations. The permeation flux of pyridine–water liquid mixtures for the PTFPMS membranes was found to increase with the pyridine concentration in the feed mixtures. The separation factor for PDMS membranes for the removal of pyridine, IPA and MEK from aqueous binary mixtures (1 wt.%) was found to be higher than that of PTFPMS membranes while the normalized flux was higher for PTFPMS membranes under identical test conditions. The effect of crosslink density of the PTFPMS membranes on the separation of pyridine–water mixtures was also studied. For a 1 wt.% feed solution the total flux increased with the molar mass between crosslinks, whereas the separation factor for pyridine–water was highest for a molar mass between crosslinks of 15,320 g mol⁻¹.