Influence of simulated ethanol fermentation components on pervaporation performance of PDMS/ceramic composite membranes

Hydrophobic polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)/ceramic composite membrane was prepared and used in the pervaporation of simulated fermentation components. The effects of the common components in ethanol fermentation, such as glucose (polyhydric aldehyde), glycerol (organic polyol), succinic acid (organic acid) and KCl (inorganic salts), on the pervaporation performance of the composite membrane were investigated in detail. The results show that the addition of organic components to the 65 g·L^-1 ethanol-water solution has little effect on the pervaporation performance while the addition of inorganic salts (KCl) made a little improvement of separation factor. The PDMS/ceramic membranes exhibited stable performance in these ternary systems with a high flux of 4.5-4.7 kg·m^-2·h^-1 and an acceptable ethanol/water separation factor of 8.3-10.3 at 333 K.