Effect of PDMS viscosity on the pervaporative performance of PDMS/PES composite membranes for ethanol / water separation

Pervaporation is characterized by the imposition of a membrane between a liquid and a vapour phase, with a mass transfer occurring selectivity across the membrane to thevapour side [1]. Pervaporation(PV) is one of the advantageous membrane processes for separation of organic solventscomparing to other conventional separation processes likedistillation. Currently, industrial applications of pervaporation are grouped into two: one is dehydration of alcohols and otherorganic solvents using hydrophilic or charged polymeric membranes and the other is removal of small quantities of volatile organic compounds from water using hydrophobic membranes