Studies on pervaporation separation of acetone, acetonitrile and ethanol from aqueous solutions

Pervaporation is applied for acetone, acetonitrile and ethanol removal from water solutions. The separation of binary acetone–water, acetonitrile–water and ethanol–water mixtures was initially carried out. The effects of feed concentration and feed temperature on the pervaporation performance, total and partial permeate fluxes as well as organic selectivity, have been investigated. The overall mass transfer coefficients have been determined and discussed for each organic–water mixture at different conditions of feed temperature and initial organic feed concentrations. The overall and individual activation energies of water and each organic compound associated to the permeation process have been calculated. Finally, pervaporation was applied to wastewater solutions containing acetone, acetonitrile and ethanol at a temperature of 40 °C. The organic selectivity was found to be in the order of acetone > acetonitrile > ethanol.