Pervaporation separation of styrene-ethylbenzene mixture using poly(hexamethylene sebacate)-based polyurethane membranes

Abstract

A series of poly(hexamethylene sebacate) (PHS), with molecular weight in a range of 890 -2200, based polyurethanes (PU), were synthesized by solution polymerization with different kinds of isocyanate and chain extender and two kinds of polymerization methods. All the PHS-based PU membranes exhibited selectivity towards styrene during the pervaporation of styrene-ethylbenzene mixtures, and the properties of sorption and pervaporation were related to the composition of the PU membranes. Membranes with a low hard-segment content and by two-stage polymerization method exhibited high permselectivity.

Modeling of spiral wound pervaporation modules with application to the separation of styrene/ethylbenzene mixtures

“…Commercial spiral wound modules have been developed for some solvent dehydration applications [9,22], but to our knowledge spiral wound modules for bulk separation of hydrocarbons are not available. The polyurethane membrane investigated in [4,5] appears to have the necessary material properties to construct a spiral wound module. In this paper, the spiral wound configuration is assumed for derivation of the pervaporation model.…”

“…In previous research by the first author [4,5], PHS was used to synthesize a styrene selective pervaporation membrane for styrene/ethylbenzene separations. A polyurethane membrane of thickness 50 m was prepared by crosslinking PHS with multifunctional polyisocyanate.…”

“…It has been estimated that the development of a high performance styrene/ethylbenzene pervaporation membrane could produce energy savings as large as 84% compared to distillation [14]. A poly(hexamethylene sebacate) (PHS)-based polyurethane membrane for pervaporative separation of styrene/ethylbenzene mixtures has been synthesized and analyzed by the first author [4,5]. While the polyurethane membrane cannot be characterized as a high performance material according to the specifications in [14], the styrene permselectivity is sufficient for bulk separation.…”

Permeation of methanol/methyl-t-butyl ether mixtures through poly(ethylene-co-vinyl acetate) films

“…The separation of aromatic/aliphatic [1], aromatic/cycloaliphatic [2], styrene/ethylbenzene [3] and alcohols [4] liquid mixtures has been recently reported.…”

Nonlinear Parameter Estimation for Solution‐Diffusion Models of Membrane Pervaporation

“…A specific estimation strategy is developed for a solution model based on Flory‐Huggins theory, a diffusion model derived from Fick's law and a phenomenologic relation used to account for the effect of temperature on the component fluxes. The separation of styrene and ethylbenzene with a poly(hexamethylene sebacate) based polyurethane membrane9,10 is used to illustrate the parameter estimation procedure. It is important to note that optimization‐based parameter estimation is not restricted to the particular model forms used here.…”