Development of Separation Process for Potential Gasoline Additives by Pervaporation

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The octane-enhancers such as Dimethyl carbonate (DMC), t-Amyl methyl ether (TAME) and Methyl-t-butyl ether (MTBE) have attracted much attention in recent years as a potential gasoline additive. These octane-enhancers are produced by essentially the reaction with methanol (MeOH) over an acidic catalyst. As the reaction is reversible, it is required to separate unreacted MeOH from the product solution for recycling to the reactor. However, MeOH forms an azeotrope with these octane-enhancers, which is difficult to separate by distilllation.As one promising separation technology from view of energy-saving point, pervaporation using hydrophilic membranes have been applied to preferentially permeate MeOH from MeOH-organic mixtures.In pervaporation of water-alcohol mixtures, the hydrolyzed polyacrylonitrile and polyion complex membranes, which are hydrophilic membranes were found to provide with high flux and emhanced separation factor. These membranes was also effective for the separation of MeOH from the azeotropic MeOH-DMC or TAME mixture. From the father investigation, the organic-inorganic hybrid membrane was useful to the separation of MeOH-MTBE mixture.Moreover, the energy efficiency was evaluated by using simulator and the process with membrane separation was found to be available for the production of MTBE.