Poly(vinyl alcohol)-H-ZSM-5 zeolite mixed matrix membranes for pervaporation separation of methanol–benzene mixture

Mixed matrix membranes of H-ZSM-5 incorporated poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) membranes were prepared by solution casting method and crosslinked with glutaraldehyde. The prepared membranes were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, wide-angle X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, differential scanning calorimeter and thermogravimetric analysis. Resulting membranes were tested for pervaporation (PV) separation of methanol–benzene mixture. Pervaporation separation characteristics of the zeolite incorporated membranes were tested at varying methanol feed compositions at different temperatures. It was observed that the mixed matrix membrane containing 5 wt.% of zeolite showed the highest selectivity value of 47 with 71.03 g/m2 h of flux at 20 wt.% methanol in feed mixture at 30 °C temperature. In comparison with higher (5 wt.%) zeolite content membrane, the less zeolite (1 wt.%) incorporated membrane shown the less selectivity along with moderate flux. The experimental studies explain that there is an increase in membrane performance such as swelling, permeation flux and methanol selectivity with H-ZSM-5 content in the membrane. In addition membrane swelling experiments with feed components were performed to understand the PV results.