In the epoxy resin manufacturing process, carcinogenic ECH (epichlorohydrin), IPA (isopropanol) and Biphenol-A materials has been generally used. After the reaction, byproducts containing ECH/IPA/Water is remained along with final product. But, in the recovery process, ECH and IPA forming an azeotropic mixture with water containing feed solution at any temperature condition, the recovery of high purity ECH is difficult only by distillation. Therefore, pervaporation process could be suitable countermeasure due to its mild operation condition for separation of azeotropic mixtures at the point of energy and cost saving. In this study, Alumina-PVA composite membrane was prepared for pervaporation dehydration of ECH/IPA/Water feed mixtures and pervaporation performance and stability of the prepared composite membrane was identified.

Power plants consume a major fraction of water to generate electricity, typically in the range between 30 - 50% of all fresh water sources. Most of the water from plants are lost with heat through stack and cooling towers. It has been reported that if 20% of these water can be recycled, power plants can be self-sustainable, allowing them to be located with higher flexibility. Membrane contactor can be an effective solution to harness this source of water, but most of the work have been focused on dense vapor separation membranes with limited success. In this work, we investigated potential application of membrane condenser technology to harness fresh water from power plants.

The modification of Silicotungstic acid (STA) was done by Melamine and Mixed matrix membranes from the Melamine modified Silico tungstic acid (M-STA) particles were prepared for the pervaporation dehydration of Water -Isopropanol (IPA) mixture. The characterization of the membranes were done by FTIR, SEM, EDS AFM XRD, and contact angle measurements. The M-STA loaded composite membranes showed improved pervaporation performance in comparison to the virgin membrane. The 8 wt% M-STA loaded (M8-MSTA) membrane gave an optimum pervaporation performance having flux = 0.36 kg/m2h, separation factor 485.6 for 20 wt% water -isopropanol feed composition at 60 0C was observed.

The hollow fiber composite membrane used in pervaporation test was prepared by dip coating method on the Polyether Sulfone hollow fiber using tartaric acid added PVA solution. And each membrane solution contains H2SO4 as acid catalyst for esterification reaction between PVA and TA. Also, to increase coating uniformity, specific amount of SDS(sodium dodecyl sulfate) was contained. Prepared membrane was characterized by IR spectroscopy, swelling to observe cross-linking degree of PVA and Tartaric acid then, finally used in pervaporation test. The pervaporation test was mainly studied about effect of catalyst amount in the membrane solution and the test was performed until pervaporation value converged.

Blended membranes of hydrophilic polymers poly (vinyl alcohol) (PVA) and poly(vinyl amine) (PVAm) were prepared and crosslinked with glutaraldehyde. The characterization of membranes were done by using FTIR, XRD, DSC, SEM and swelling study. MB1.5 membrane was the best one in all since it exhibited higher separation index. By using blend membrane (MB1.5), the flux through a 65-mm film increased from 0.01 to 0.47 kg/m2h at an acetonitrile/water feed ratio between 20/80 and 5/95 w/w at 30°C while separation factor increased from the 5055 to 100.84 attributed to the higher hydrophilicity of blend membranes. On comparison of pervaporation data with water-acetonitrile vapor-liquid equilibrium data it was observed that the membrane acted as third phase to effectively break the azeotropes.