Next-generation pervaporation-assisted distillation: Recent advances in process intensification

Abstract

Pervaporation is a well-established membrane separation process that effectively overcomes limitations of distillation due to azeotropes and distillation boundaries. The selective mass transfer of pervaporation membranes has enabled successful implementation in a variety of industries, with applications in the chemical industry, as well as the food and pharma industry, including membrane bioreactors in fermentation processes. Yet, the majority of applications in separation processes remain focused on the dehydration of aqueous-organic process streams, including biofuel and bioethanol production. Pervaporation-assisted distillation processes leverage the benefits of both technologies and exploit the resulting synergies to provide energy and cost-efficient separations, especially for azeotropic mixtures, which otherwise require rather energy intensive distillation processes, such as pressure-swing, extractive or hetero-azeotropic distillation. The current review provides an overview of recent developments that enable further process intensification of pervaporation-assisted distillation processes and provides some perspective on emerging trends that may result in a wider application of these interesting hybrid separation processes.