The Largest Zeolite Membrane Module for Vapor Permeation in the Dehydration Process of Biomass Ethanol

Abstract

Zeolite NaA membrane composed of a continuous intergrowth of zeolite NaA crystals had synthesized hydrothermally on the surface of a porous tubular support (12mm outer diameter, 800mm length and 1µm average pore size). The membrane was highly selective for permeating water preferentially with the high permeation flux in pervaporation (PV) and vapor permeation (VP). VP is proposed to be one of the most challenging techniques for dehydration of organics. The tubular-type module was designed in order to make the zeolite membrane viable for dehydration application. Thus, the largest zeolite membrane module has put into an existing beverage alcoholic manufacturing plant which produces 1,250kgh^-1 of ethanol at less than 0.2wt% of water from 84.8wt% biomass ethanol solution at 135°C. The plant is equipped with 6 modules, each of which consists of 550 pieces of zeolite NaA membrane tubes. The successful fabrication of the plant and the high level of VP properties of the module are discussed.