Hydrophilic and organophilic pervaporation of industrially important α,β and α,ω-diols.

The distillation-based purification of α,β and α,ω-diols is energy and resource intensive, as well as time consuming. Pervaporation separation is considered to be a remarkable energy efficient membrane technology for purification of diols. Thus, as a core pervaporation process, hydrophilic polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) membranes for the removal of water from 1,2-hexanediol (1,2-HDO) and organophilic polydimethylsiloxane-polysulfone (PDMS-PSF) membranes for the removal of isopropanol from 1,5 pentanediol (1,5-PDO) were employed.