Development and characterization of sago based pervaporation membranes for the recovery of mixed cesium and potassium formate brines
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Date
2018
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Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
Abstract
Natural polymeric membranes being low cost, environmentally friendly and abundant in nature have proven their potential in pervaporative dehydration of organics. In this study, the efficiency of separation of mixed cesium and potassium (CsKFo) brines was evaluated at different membrane preparation conditions using sago starch (SS) and pervaporation (PV) operation conditions. Response surface methodology (RSM) was used to optimize the membrane preparation conditions and pervaporation operating conditions on flux and pervaporation separation index (PSI). Sago based pervaporation membranes showed excellent physicochemical properties after poly(vinyl) alcohol (PVA) blending, glutaraldehyde (GTA) crosslinking and heat treatment. The optimum preparation conditions for sago based membranes were found to be at 50 wt. % of SS in the blend, crosslinked with 1.0 wt. % GTA and heat treated at 150 °C with the highest flux and PSI of 228.03 g/m²h and 79.30 x 104, respectively. The optimum PV operating conditions were at 98% of CsKFo in feed and operated at 53 °C of feed temperature with the highest flux and PSI being 261.38 g/m²h and 277.42 x 105, respectively. The apparent activation energy for permeation (Ep) and activated diffusion (ED) calculated from the Arrhenius equation for water were smaller (Ep = 22.06 kJ/mol,ED = 22.17 kJ/mol) than CsKFo (Ep = 48.99 kJ/mol, ED = 48.98 kJ/mol) suggesting that the water molecules were easily permeated across the membrane and required less energy to diffuse through. The findings demonstrated that PV has potential for the complete recovery of CsKFo brines, which in turn benefits the oil and gas industry. This research also provides findings for extended application of SS biocomposite particularly as hydrophilic membranes
Description
Thesis (PhD. (Chemical Engineering))
Keywords
Polymeric membranes, Pervaporation, Membrane separation