Dehydration of Pyridine Aqueous Solution through Poly(acryionitrile-co-4-styrene sulfonic acid) Membranes by Pervaporation

There has been many attempts to improve the membrane performance using pervaporation processes[l-3]. They are 1) blending polymer with the high flux and one with high selectivity, 2) an incorporation of functional groups interacting with permeants into a membrane through copolymerization or modification, 3) composite membrane or asymmetric membrane structure with a thin skin layer which acts as a selective layer. Among them, a polymeric membrane containing ion complex group receives an extensive attention recently because ionic complex is known to activate the water transport through ion-dipole interaction. It is especially advantageous in the separation of organic-water system. We applied the ideas of the activation of water transport through ion-dipole. We have reported on the in-sire complex membrane to separate water from aqueous aceiic acid and pyridme solution[4-5] based on the simple acid-base theory. Water transport was enhanced through in-situ complex between pyridine moiety in the membrane and the incoming acetic acid in the feed. In this case, catalytic transport mechanism was proposed. In the present study we used pyridine solution as a feed and the sulfonic acid group in the membrane.