Development of PEBA-PEMA blend membranes for the pervaporation separation of 1-butanol from aqueous solutions

Using the Hansen’s solubility parameters (HSPs) approach, novel polyether block amide (PEBA)-polyethyl methacrylate (PEMA) polymer blend membranes were synthesized and applied for the pervaporation (PV) separation of 1-butanol. Blending with PEMA led to an increase in surface roughness and hydrophobicity. PV performance of the blend membranes for the recovery of 1-butanol from aqueous solution (20 g/L) at 40 °C showed an improvement in separation performance with the blending of PEMA; however, a higher blending ratio (≥ 8 wt%) significantly reduced PV performance due to phase separation. The membrane (PBPM-5) containing 5 wt% of PEMA achieved the best PV separation, yielding a flux of 0.19 kgm −2 h − 1 and a separation factor of 15.5, which is a 50% enhancement in flux and a twofold increase in the separation factor as compared to the pristine PEBA membrane. An increase in PV operation temperature and feed butanol content showed simultaneous enhancement in both the separation factor and flux for the PBPM-5 membrane. Separation of butanol from multicomponent mixture resulted in lower performance indicating the presence of strong coupling effect. This work shows the PV butanol separation capability of PEBA can be significantly enhanced through the judicious blending of small amount of PEMA polymer.