Anhydrous fuel ethanol production by a combined hydrophobic hydrophilic pervaporation system
ABSTRACT In this study, a hybrid bioethanol production and purification system was designed and operated at different operation conditions. In the first stage, dilute ethanol (3 wt% was produced by fermentation and concentrated to 80 wt% ethanol water mixture by means of poly(dimethylsiloxane) membrane. In the second stage, residual water was purified to approximately 99% water content by using carboxymethyl cellulose membrane. The first stage is a fermentor, so the temperature was kept stable at 25degC. Effects of the operation variables such as temperature and concentration of the mixture on membrane separation performance were evaluated.