A thermodynamic approach to choosing pervaporatives membranes

Abstract

This work describes separating a mixture of several components obtained as a product of methyl polymethyl metha- crylate (PMMA) thermo-degradation. It was aimed at purifying methyl methacrylate monomer (MMA) obtained by 95% mass thermal degradation to reach 99.5% maximum pervaporation concentration. This work studied the theory of pervaporation and applying the main thermodynamic criteria for choosing suitable polymer membranes for separating the MMA/PRP/ISB mixture. Such thermodynamic criteria were based on monomer interaction with and solubility on the membrane. The advantage of using this separation technique lies mainly in the fact that this method has low energy consumption compared to other processes, such as distillation or crystallisation.

Keywords

• membrane
• polymer
• solvent
• pervaporation
• thermodynamics
• interaction
• solubility