Pervaporation as sustainable process

Nowadays, pervaporation (PV) can be considered as a membrane separation process that can satisfy the claims of the modern society. Low energy consumption and no solvents requirements make PV a "green" process to be considered alternative to the traditional ones. In this chapter, it is reported the history of PV, starting from 1917, when the word "pervaporation" was firstly used, to most recent years during which many breakthroughs in this field have been done. Then, basic aspects of the separation PV process as well as the applications, classified as solvent dehydration, organic/water separation and organic/organic separation, are discussed in details.