Improving pervaporation performance of PDMS membranes by interpenetrating polymer network for recovery of bio-butanol

In order to improve PV performance of PDMS membranes, PDMS/fluoropolymer interpenetrating polymer network (IPN) membrane was prepared. The IPN was characterized by FTIR, DMA and swelling experiments. The effects of feed concentration, feed temperature and composition of the IPN were discussed. Both separation factor and total flux increase consistently with feed concentration and feed temperature. By the formation of the IPN structure, butanol diffusion of the PDMS membrane is obviously accelerated and the PV performance is greatly improved. Molecular dynamics simulations indicated that both solvation and diffusion of the butanol/ water molecules play important role in the IPN pervaporation. The PV performance obtained the best when the fluoropolymer content of the IPN is 30%, which obtained a separation factor of 64.4 with a total flux of 1519.6 g/m(2) h at 68 degrees C for the separation of 2.75% butanol.