Polyvinyl Alcohol γ-Ray Grafted Nylon 4 Membrane for Pervaporation and Evapomeation

Abstract

Abstract Nylon 4, which possesses high mechanical strength and good affinity for water, can be considered as a liquid separation membrane. To improve the hydrophilicity of a Nylon 4 membrane for pervaporation and evapomeation processes, and to overcome the hydrolysis of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), this study attempts to prepare a PVA-g-Nylon 4 membrane by γ-ray irradiation grafting of vinyl acetate (VAc) onto Nylon 4 membrane, followed by hydrolysis treatment. The effects of down-stream pressure, irradiation dose, VAc monomer concentration, degree of grafting, feed composition, and size of alcohols on the separation of water–alcohol mixtures were studied. The surface properties of the prepared membrane were characterized by FTIR, ESCA, and a contact angle meter. A separation factor of 13.8 and a permeation rate of 0.352 kg/m2·h can be obtained for a PVA-g-Nylon 4 membrane with a degree of grafting of 21.2% for a 90-wt% ethanol feed concentration. Compared to the pervaporation process, the evapomeation process has a significantly increased separation factor with a decreased permeation rate for the same PVA-g-Nylon 4 membrane.