Title

Abstract
Acknowledgment
preface
1. Membrane Separation:
In chemical process industries frequently and most main module separation technique has arisen
which is membrane separation. it's now has attained extensive development to compete with  a
number of the normal separation processes.

As we know that, working definition of a membrane has been expressed as;

'A membrane has a thin barrier, placed between medium or two phases, which has allowed one
or more constituents to selectively pass from one medium to the other in the presence of an
appropriate driving force while retaining the rest.' That is named as `semipermeable'.

Figure 1: Membrane Separation Unit

2. Working Principle:
The membrane is placed on a firm and highly porous support plate and then steadily held
between the flanges of a two-compartment cell. As the feed will enter in one compartment and
flow through the membrane and similar process will occurs with other compartments and all its
permeate will be collected in another compartment. As we know that, the stream which will
leave the feed compartment will be known as a retentate due to few substances has retained in it.
Membrane could be permeable & non-porous. As a impermeable membrane can be named as
dense membrane.

3. Driving force:
As compare to many other separation process membrane separation also needs some type of
driving force. A fine pore membrane has used. Sieving mechanism creates the separation
process. As membrane let the solvent to pass through from it. This type of membrane separation
process has named as microfiltration and ultrafiltration or Nano filtration. As it rest on the range
of membrane pore size of the components detached. Now here is the difference of the driving,
basically pressure difference & permeate. The dense and non-porous membrane is only use when
small molecules separation is needed.

As we can say the salt separation from sea water as the transport of solvent has appeared because
of the effect of pressure difference & potable water as only traces of salt is obtained as a
permeate, that is named as reverse osmosis.

4. Figure 2: Representation of a Common Membrane Separation Techniques

Advantage and Disadvantages:

For many applications membrane separation technology has suitable characteristics. The main
benefits are:

 Fundamentally modest; as membrane device has a modular design and if feed rate is
bigger than number of modules has used in parallel.
 Moderate temperature is good for sensitive substances which have high heated value.
 Most membrane process has same major principles.

Its drawbacks are:

 Fouling of Membrane & resultant flux has declined

 Membrane lifetime is short.
 Costly membranes and particular solvents may rapidly and permanently damage the
membrane
Processes of Membrane:
The microfiltration ranges between 0.1-10μm. The driving force behind these types of
membranes is the pressure gradient. To achieve maximum degree of saturation these membranes
are widely applied. The larger pore size of MF membranes enables them to be used at low
pressures. For the removal of bacteria from cellular broths, in dairy industries and clarifying
procedures MF membranes are widely used.

Ultrafiltration

The pore size of the Nano-filtration membrane is between 1-100nm. In contrast to MF and UF
(Ultrafiltration) which separates the materials depending upon their size. The concentration
factor can’t be ignored while applying NF membranes. The relatively small pore size than MF
membranes enables UF membranes to be used in many sectors including, automobile, paints and
electro-coating of different materials.
Nano-filtration (NF) Membranes

NF membranes consider both size and charge, in contrast to MF and UF that only considers pore
size for their separation process. They are able to hold micro solutes such as organic sugar
particles, and monovalent ions are retained by NF membranes. A wide range of industries apply
NF membranes including waste water treatment plants and demineralization of dairy and milk
products.

RO membranes

As the name indicates Reverse Osmosis membranes, have the smallest holes and pore size. These
membranes are applied where a great degree of separation is required. The not only require pore
size classification but diffusive process is also considered while applying these types of
membranes.

The clean and pure drinking water obtained from RO membranes is the most commonly applied
application of these membranes. The process of Osmosis involves the movement of water
molecules form higher to lower concentration. Two liquid phases from water to sugar
concentrations can be seen in figure (a). As from the figure it can be seen that clean water is at
one end while solution contain sugar is at the other end. Pure water has larger chemical potential
so it rises the level on the other side of solution creating a hydrostatic head which can be seen in
figure (b).

The process is in equilibrium so the hydrostatic pressure between the two phases is equal
(solution and pure water) to the chemical potential of the water in both the phases. P is denoted
as pressure difference in osmotic pressure. The pressure difference equals to osmotic pressure if
there are solutions of both sides of the membranes.

Ci is conc. of the solute.

R is the general gas constant.

T is the absolute temperature.

For completely disassociated electrolytes Naclo and CaC 2 is 2 and 3 respectively. For the
molecules that do not disassociate the number is 1. Both the non-ideal as well as the concentrated
solutions osmotic pressure is used.
5. Characteristics of Good Membrane:
Most significant features of well material membrane are:

 It has Effective permeability

 Great selectivity
 It have Fouling resistance & adsorption
 Pliability to casting of thin film
 Fabrication module suitability

6. Membrane Types:
Membranes which are Synthetic have been categorizing into porous & dense, composite
membranes. Symmetric and Asymmetric membranes belongs to porous membranes. By
electrical potential gradient or pressure gradient chemical potential gradient, pressure gradient
dense membranes allow transport of molecules.

Figure 3: Types of membrane

7. Symmetric Membranes:
Membranes which are symmetrical has consisted of uniform overall structure which can be
micro porous from which molecules has dejected by sorption & diffusion. From solution casting
these membranes has been characterizing to achieve by solution technique. Flux must be low
from these membranes, utilization had restricted to pervaporation & gas separation.

Figure 4: Structure of polymeric membranes

8. Microporous symmetrical membrane:

Basically, it contains pores that has uniform throughout that membrane & they must contained a
pore size occurs from 0.01 to 10 pm. Because of the huge particles than pore size and these filter
membranes particles had stuck at the membrane surface, let allowed only a few elements to pass
from it.

9. Asymmetric Membranes:
Basically, asymmetric membranes had contained skin thin layer on the permeable carry
containing voids ended to assist as the substrate for the skin layer. As we know that, asymmetric
membranes has a thickness less than 50nm. Only for skin pore size & thickness these membranes
had characterized. And skin thin layer has supported to influential the mass transfer rate through
these membranes. These membranes has additionally ordered into integrally skinned membrane
& non-integrally skinned membrane. Because of benefit of asymmetric membranes has provided
upper fluxes by membranes which are anisotropic in nature. Membrane thickness has inversed
relation with species transport rate.

10. Electrically Charged Membranes:

Fixed positive & negatives charges has found in micro-porous membranes in the walls which
have pores identified as charged electrically membranes. Anion exchange membranes are those
basically which contains positive charge ions present in it. As we know that, these charged
membranes is being using for processing electrolyte solutions comprising electrodialysis process
of ionizable species.

11. MEMBRANE MODULES

The membrane module had compacted unit housing the membrane as a barrier among the feed
and permeate flow regions & fitted with the inlet and outlet nozzles at both feed and permeate
sides. As if we compare it a membrane module had a small sized but bigger packing density with
conventional separation devices. We can use sum of modules consectively, if the feed rate is
bulky. It had not builted as a huge unit due to practical limitations. Some main types of modules
have normally use,

 Frame & Platter

 Aslo spiral-wound
 Type of the fiber which is hollow too.
 It have Tubular behviour.

Figure 5: Plate and Frame

Figure 6: Spiral Wound

12. Industrial Applications:
13. Pervaporation:
Pervaporation

A thin non-porous polymeric membrane, when it comes to contact with liquid mixture feed
allowing condensate at one end and permeate at the other end of the membrane. The drying force
is the chemical potential difference that causes mass transfer of liquid from permeate and feed
side.

The primary idea of pervaporation is the liquid mixture separation (Azeotropes, organic-organic
and organic-aqueous) by maintaining the idea of vapor pressure gradient across the both ends of
the membranes. The simple process enables the researchers to apply extensively these
membranes to investigate mass transport in PV. This three phase model is defined as:

 Selectively penetrating membranes from liquid feed to upstream membranes,

Adsorption.
 Membrane thickness.
 Desorption, from permeate to downstream surface.

Figure 7: Working Mechanism of Pervaporation

14. Pervaporation of Ethanol/Water Mixture:
Water/Ethanol Mixture

Due to the formation of azeotropes and their close volatility some mixtures can’t be separated
by applying regular techniques. Some special techniques are required for their complete
separation. The greatest possible concentration in Water/ethanol is 95% w/w. To address this
problem, Azeotropic distillation is applied. Entrainer to the mixture is the major disadvantage
which results in cost fluctuation and water utilization.

A pervaporation method can save up to 35% more energy than a traditional distillation process.
In the dehydration of different organic solvents, pervaporation and vapor permeation employ
hydrophilic membranes (PVA, polyvinyl alcohol). In an industrial scale pervaporation machine,
94- 99.9 %ethanol, and isopropyl alcohol (IPA) can be dehydrated from 83-99.9 percent.

Some Advantages

Hybrid distillation techniques that use either pervaporation or vapor permeation have shown to
be a highly cost-effective choice. PV requires less room since the process equipment is compact
in comparison to the process of separation. The other advantage also include the ease of
handling the operation, as well as its adaptation to hybrid processes; hence, maintenance and
process control would be quite simple.
 Figure 8: Hybrid Distillation – Pervaporation plant for absolute alcohol

15. Membrane Distillation:

Distillation by membrane is a process in which the upstream side &
the percolate side has separated by feed the result which brought in contact with one side of
the pervious hydrophobic membrane. As we use membrane to allow like water let pass to the
membrane pores until the trans-membrane and then liquid entry pressure also applied to the
membrane. An interface has been established at the entrance of pores . Membrane will be
porous.
  The process fluids will not wet the membrane.
 Inside the pores of membrane no action like
capillary condensation has taken
placed.
 At least one side of the membrane should
be in direct contact with the
process liquid.

Figure 9: Working Principle of Membrane Distillation

Depending upon the operating producer membrane distillation classify into four categories

 Direct Contact Membrane Distillation (DCMD),

 Vacuum Membrane Distillation (VMD),
 Air-Gap Membrane Distillation (AGMD), and
 Sweep-Gas Membrane Distillation (SGMD)

Advantages of Membrane Distillation

The main advantages of MD applied for radioactive waste' suspending are Moderate process
conditions, ambient pressure and moderate temperature Low functional costs for medium-sized
installation the possibility of application of waste heat, for illustration. from cooling system of
nuclear reactor The possibility to achieve high attention, close to achromatism The possibility
of use of plastics as construction accoutrements for outfit. Because
of moderate process conditions, minimization of erosion and capital costs Compact
installations (one- stage units)