Pervaporation separation of meOH/MTBE through CTA membrane

In the present work, the pervaporation (PV) separation of a MeOH/MTBE mixture system was studied using a CTA dense membrane. The PV performances were characterized by changing the operating conditions, such as the feed composition and permeation temperature. The results show that the CTA membrane favors MeOH permeation and exhibits specificity during the PV separation process for the MeOH/MTBE system due to the existence of the plasticization effect from the MeOH component. Furthermore, the swelling sorption measurements reaffirm that the plasticization effect has a dominant effect on the transport of the penetrants through the membrane and substantially determines the PV permeation properties.