Methanol Separation From Liquid Mixtures Via Pervaporation Using Membranes

Pervaporation (PV) is considered an efficient and indispensable membrane process in liquid separation and in particular for breaking azeotropes of liquid mixtures. It is based on the use of a polymeric or inorganic membrane located at the interface between a liquid feed mixture to be treated and the vapor phase (permeate). This membrane technology ranges over numerous applications including the dehydration of an organic solvent, organic/organic separation, and the removal of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from water. In the first part of the chapter, an introduction on PV, reporting the fundamentals and the transport mechanism of the process, is reported. The application of PV in organic/organic separation is also illustrated. The second part of the chapter deals with the PV separation of methanol/organic and methanol/aqueous mixtures.