Treatment of evaporator condensates by pervaporation
AssigneeMembrane Technology and Research, Inc.
InventorsIngo Blume, Richard W. Baker
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Abstract
A pervaporation process for separating organic contaminants from evaporator condensate streams is disclosed. The process employs a permselective membrane that is selectively permeable to an organic component of the condensate. The process involves contacting the feed side of the membrane with a liquid condensate stream, and withdrawing from the permeate side a vapor enriched in the organic component. The driving force for the process is the in vapor pressure across the membrane. This difference may be provided for instance by maintaining a vacuum on the permeate side, or by condensing the permeate. The process offers a simple, economic alternative to other separation techniques.
Claims8
A separation process, comprising an evaporation step followed by a pervaporation step, wherein said evaporation step comprises:
- (a) providing a feed solution comprising an aqueous solvent component and a non-aqueous solute component, said non-aqueous solute component including a volatile organic component;
- (b) subjecting said feed solution to evaporation, to create an evaporated fraction wherein the concentrations of said aqueous component and said volatile organic component are enriched compared with said feed solution;
- and wherein said pervaporation step comprises:
- (a) providing a permselective membrane having a feed side and a permeate side;
- (b) contacting said feed side with said evaporated fraction;
- (c) withdrawing from said permeate side a permeate vapor enriched in said volatile organic component compared with said evaporated fraction;
- (d) maintaining an organic vapor pressure on said permeate side sufficient to provide a driving force for organic vapor permeation through said composite membrane by condensing said permeate vapor.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.