Hydrophobic hollow fiber membranes for treating MTBE-contaminated water

Soluble contaminants with low Henry's constant, such as methyl tert-butyl e ther (MTBE), require innovative solutions for water treatment. Given the in creased frequency at which MTBE is detected at contaminated sites, the deve lopment of new technologies is of considerable relevance. Hydrophobic hollo w fiber membranes (HFM), used in industrial and medical applications, have interesting physicochemical properties that make them particularly suitable to deal with these contaminants. The hydrophobicity of the fiber maintains adequate separation between aqueous and gaseous phases, permitting an effi cient separation of volatile and semivolatile compounds from water to gas. The hollow nature of the fiber and its high porosity permit high rates of m ass transfer across the membrane. The mass transfer process can be accelera ted using pervaporation and by increasing the solution's temperature to inc rease the Henry's constant and the overall mass transfer coefficient. In th ese studies, we evaluate the removal efficiency of MTBE from water using a commercial HFM module and develop the corresponding dimensionless mass tran sfer correlations necessary for the design of industrial-scale systems. We found that the Leveque correlation for the tube-side mass transfer coeffici ent is in general applicable for MTBE pervaporation through a hydrophobic H FM. MTBE removal is a strong function of membrane length, water flowrate, a nd solution temperature but is almost independent of gas-phase parameters.