Pervaporation Of Octane-Thiophene Mixture Using Polyimide Membrane

With the increasingly stringent environmental regulations on sulfur concentration in transportation fuels, the desulfurization of fuel oil has become an important research subject.The polyimide membrane was synthesized by the two-step method and its pervaporation performance for the octane and thiophene mixture was characterized. Major factors influenced the membrance separation wre studied. The results indicated that the copper-based pipeline of the equipment greatly adsorbed thiophene, which affected the membrance separation. Based on the modified equipment of stainless steel pipeline, good separation performance was obtained: temperature of membrane cell = 50℃, polyamide concentration =16.0%, the flux was in the range of 1.52-2.37kg/m2h, and the separation factor ranged from 1.69 to 3.43. Additionally adsorbents were synthesized through the hydrothermal method to preferably adsorb thiophene, which is promising to develop organic-inorganic hybrid desulfurization membrane.