Ethanol Separation from an Ethanol-Water Solution Using Vacuum Membrane Distillation.

The vacuum membrane distillation (VMD) process was applied to separate ethanol from a simulated ethanol-water solution using a commercial polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) membrane. The presence of ethanol in the ethanol-water solution with a 2 wt.% ethanol concentration at a temperature above 40 °C during the MD process may result in membrane failure due to an increase in the chance of the PTFE membrane wetting at high temperatures.