(609b) Pervaporative Alcohol Dehydration Using PVA-TEOS-CMS Hybrid Membrane

Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) membranes are characterized by their inherent hydrophilicity which makes them attractive for highly permselective water separation for aqueous organic dehydration or water treatment applications. However, swelling and their compromising transport properties introduces control attempts like cross-linking, surface modification, and annealing methods. These methods offers a good solution in terms of stability but it highly compromises the transport properties. In this study, a hybrid organic–inorganic membranes were prepared by hydrolysis of poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) cross linked by tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) with carbon molecular sieves(CMS) derived from lignin. The negative effects introduced by the crosslinking is compensated by the additional selective water transport by the CMS. The use of hybrid membrane showed improvements in the mechanical and thermal properties. The chemical and thermal crosslinking conditions were optimized for the two-step crosslinking approach. Membrane were characterized by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), Thermo Gravimetric Analysis (TGA), X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), SEM, water contact angle analysis as well as pervaporation performance for ethanol dehydration were investigated. The obtained results are crucial for the design and elaboration of the polymer membranes for the pervaporative alcohol dehydration as well as water treatment processes.