Continuous dehydration of IPA-water mixture by vapor permeation using Y type zeolite membrane in a recycling system

摘要

Industrially alcohol dehydration is carried out by a distillation process, thereby requiring a large amount of energy. In an IPA/water system, since producing an azeotrope, two more distillation towers should be added. Therefore, a large amount of energy saving will be expected when the IPA concentration by applying vapor permeation (VP) with membrane becomes possible. Recently, zeolite membrane separation has been attracting much interest in terms of lower energy consumption and higher separation performance.