Pervaporation for separating benzene/cyclohexane mixture by P(AA-MA) copolymer membranes

P(AA-MA) copolymers composed of acrylic acid and methyl acrylate with different molecular weights and sequence structures were synthesized by combination of ATRP and selective hydrolysis. These copolymers were used as membrane materials to separate benzene/cyclohexane mixture by pervaporation. The effects of molecular weight and sequence structure of the copolymers on the pervaporation performance were investigated in detail. For the random copolymers, the permeate flux decreased rapidly with the increasing of molecular weight. The separation factor was also influenced by the molecular weight, which was changed from no selectivity to cyclohexane selectivity with increasing the molecular weight. Contrarily, the block copolymer membrane showed good benzene selectivity with separation factor of 4.3 and permeate flux of 157 g/(m2h) to 50 wt% benzene/cyclohexane mixture.