Hyperbranched polymer hollow-fiber-composite membranes for pervaporation separation of aromatic/aliphatic hydrocarbon mixtures

The separation of aromatic/aliphatic hydrocarbon mixtures is crucial in the petrochemical industry. Pervaporation is regarded as a promising approach for the separation of aromatic compounds from alkanes. Developing membrane materials with efficient separation performance is still the main task since the membrane should provide chemical stability, high permeation flux and selectivity. In this study, the hyperbranched polymer (HBP) was deposited on the outer surface of a polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) hollow fiber ultrafiltration membrane by a facile dip-coating method. The dip-coating rate, HBP concentration, and thermal cross-linking temperature were regulated to optimize the membrane structure. The obtained HBP/PVDF hollow fiber composite membrane had a good separation performance for aromatic/aliphatic hydrocarbon mixtures. For the 50%/50% (mass) toluene/n-heptane mixture, the permeation flux of optimized composite membranes could reach 1766 g·m–2·h–1 with the separation factor of 4.1 at 60 °C. Therefore, the HBP/PVDF hollow fiber composite membrane have great application prospects in the pervaporation separation of aromatic/aliphatic hydrocarbon mixtures.