MATHEMATICAL MODELLING AND PARAMETER ESTIMATION FOR PERVAPORATION PROCESS

Abstract

Recently, pervaporation as a separation process has been heavily investigated for removal of sulphur containing
thiophene and its derivatives from the Fluid Catalytic Cracker (Gasoline) such as Jet Fuel, and a number of
membrane materials and modules along with the dependence on varying operation conditions such as
temperature and permeate pressure for the separation process have been reported in literature. Scientific papers
from most researchers that report experimental data for pervaporation of sulphur impurities from gasoline feeds
do not present any mathematical model for the process, which is essential in case of process scale up and
commercialization. Hence, the primary objective here is to establish the „Pore Flow‟ model of pervaporation as
the primary mathematical model for the separation process of sulphur impurities from gasoline via
pervaporation, and show that the popular „Solution Diffusion‟ model actually fails in many cases with respect
to the same process parameters and operating conditions.