| Abstract: | Sodium zeolite‐Y (NaY zeolite) filled chitosan polymeric membranes were developed and characterized. The impact of adding different concentrations of NaY zeolite into the homogeneous chitosan membrane was investigated. The surface morphology, mechanical–physical properties, sorption, and pervaporation performance for the dehydration of isopropanol–water mixture separation by the pervaporation process were studied and evaluated. A homogeneous chitosan membrane showed preferential water sorption and permeation compared to isopropanol. The optimum concentration of NaY zeolite added to the homogeneous chitosan membrane was 0.4 wt %, which showed that the dispersion of the NaY zeolite was the most homogeneous and finely covered by the chitosan polymer in the zeolite–chitosan polymer interface. The tensile strength and percent strain at maximum of this membrane were 59.347 MPa and 27.5%, respectively. The sorption experiments showed that the degree of swelling was 6.54% with 1.01 wt % isopropanol sorbed in these membranes. The pervaporation separation tests demonstrated that the NaY zeolite filled chitosan membrane was capable for isopropanol–water mixture separation and improved the pervaporation separation index from 272 (homogeneous chitosan membrane) to 2687. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 99: 1740–1751, 2006 |
