Abstract
This study focuses on the development of tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS) crosslinked poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) membranes incorporating bentonite (BNT), montmorillonite (MMT), and zeolite-A (ZEO-A). The physicochemical properties of the resulting membranes were analysed using techniques such as FT-IR, WXRD, TGA, and DSC. Before subjecting the membranes to pervaporation studies, sorption studies were conducted in various water-isopropanol compositions. The influence of different zeolites on pervaporation performance was systematically investigated for water-isopropanol mixture separation at varying temperatures. Among the membranes, the ZEO-A incorporated membrane exhibited the highest separation factor of 382, with a flux of 6.459×10− 2 kg m− 2 h− 1 for 10 mass% water in the feed. The total flux and water flux overlapped, suggesting effective breaking of the water/isopropanol azeotropic point. The activation energy for water permeation (Epw) was significantly lower than that of isopropanol (EpIPA), indicating superior separation ability of the ZEO-A incorporated PVA-TEOS membrane, particularly in isopropanol dehydration. Moreover, the negative heat of sorption (∆Hs) for all membranes suggested dominance of Langmuir's sorption mode.