Pervaporation separation of N, N-dimethylformamide/water using poly (vinyl alcohol) based mixed matrix membranes

Pervaporation is a separation technique relying on the concentration gradient, often expressed as partial vapor pressures, across polymeric or polymer-composite membranes. Those membranes inevitably exhibit a strong trade-off bottleneck between permeability and selectivity of target compounds, making the search for alternative materials with advanced performance characteristics highly desirable. This work aims to incorporate the advance of polymer and inorganic fillers to synthesize mixed matrix membranes. Effect of inorganic filler on properties and separation performance of Poly (vinyl alcohol) based mixed matrix membranes was investigated extensively in terms of several means of characterization methods. The results showed that the addition of inorganic fillers, NaA, SBA-15, SiO2 and SiO2-NH2 not only enhanced the separation factor but also increased the flux of water and DMF resulting in advance in total flux. This study may provide a guide to separate DMF-water solutions and will contribute to expand the high-value utilization of mixed matrix membranes in pervaporation.