Development of Experimental methodology in Pervaporation

C. Stewart Slater
Rowan University, Department of Chemical Engineering, Glassboro, NJ 08028, USA

Chris Lipski
Zenon Environmental Inc., 845 Harrington Court, Burlington, Ontario, L7N 3P3, Canada

Experiments in membrane pervaporation are an interesting area of laboratory development in the undergraduate engineering curriculum and extend to may process areas such as chemical, environmental, petroleum, food and biochemical engineering. Pervaporation processes are important in many industries and students need to be acquainted with their fundamental principles and commercial applications. This can be accomplished through both course and laboratory development. Experiments can be developed that demonstrate the basic principles of pereation through pervaporation membranes. Experiments can also be developed to examine the effect of process parameters on pervaporative performance and the results can be translated to system design.