Pervaporation (PV) process is a process for liquid mixture separation in a liquid phase. This process is able to separate different components from mixtures such as water/organic, organic/water and organic/organic mixtures. Pervaporation process works by placing a liquid mixture to be separated (feed) in contact with one side of a membrane. Across the membrane, the chemical potential gradient works as the driving force for the mass transport of the materials. Also, using vacuum pump or an inert purge (normally air or steam) on the permeate side can help to maintain of a suitable permeate vapor pressure. Usually the kept pressure is lower than the partial pressure of the feed liquid. Finally, the permeated product (permeate) can be removed from the other side with low pressure vapor. In terms of the application or nature of the experiment, the permeate vapor may be collected after condensation or released if desired.
Basically, hydrophilic and hydrophobic membranes apply to separate the aqueous solutions and organic solvents from water mixtures, respectively. PV separation technology has superiority to other separation technologies due to the separation mechanism which is based on the difference in sorption and diffusion properties of the feed substances as well as perm-selectivity of the membrane.
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