Abstract
The vapor permeation and the pervaporation were experimented to consider a mechanism of the ethanol enrichment from the water mixture with silicone rubber. From the vapor permeation, a diffusion coefficient of water was determined as 3.3×10-8 cm2/s which was independent of the concentration. The diffusion coefficient of ethanol depended linearly on its activity with a slope of 3.7 and its zero concentration diffusion coefficient was 3.7×10-8 cm2/s. A calculated curve obtained by using above data, assuming the accelerated water diffusion in the presence of ethanol, agreed with the experimental data. This phenomenon influenced badly the separability of silicone rubber in this system.
