Organic Solvent Nanofiltration

Book excerpt: Separation of molecules present in organic solvents by membrane (nano)filtration has great potential in industries ranging from refining to fine chemical and pharmaceutical synthesis and is currently an area of intensive studies. This will be the first concise reference book offering a critical analysis on this topic. Nanofiltration, is a pressure driven membrane process used to remove solutes with molecular weight in the range of 200-1,000 g mol-1 typically from aqueous streams. A recent innovation is the extension of nanofiltration processes to organic solvents an emerging technology referred to as Organic Solvent Nanofiltration (OSN). Separation of molecules present in organic solvents by nanofiltration has great potential in various processes such as petroleum refining, fine chemical and pharmaceutical synthesis, catalyst recycle, enrichment of aromatics etc. This book summarizes the developments in the field of OSN. It describes materials and methods used for the preparation of organic solvent stable membranes. Various techniques for manufacturing of OSN membranes, their physico-chemical and performance related characterization and membrane transport mechanisms will be discussed and critically evaluated. A summary of the commercially available OSN membranes, their separation properties and manufacturers will also be presented. Finally a detailed overview of the OSN applications in various industrial and laboratory scale processes as well as their future prospective will be presented. Complete coverage of the field of organic Solvent Nanofiltration: theory and industrial applications Provides all you want to know in this fast developing application of membranes in industrial filtration and water purification Applications of membranes - summary of the existing applications and proposed new applications; review and critical analysis of the data on currently available OSN membranes. The benefit of this feature to the users is outlined in the comment of one referee: "I use these types of books as an instant reference, resource and fact checker when I am writing or researching topics in membrane technology. I also read the content carefully to keep myself at the state-of-the-art in the technology. R&D is an expensive and time consuming endeavor so anything learned from the literature is valuable when it helps to guide my efforts". Contains a large number of diagrams /figures (60 approx) which offer graphical explanations of the processes and the mechanisms underlying the processess provides practical and easy to understand examples of practical applications. The user can easily adapt these to his/her specific application Worked examples 15 (approx) Guide the reader through the various parameters, and show the reader the effect of these parameters in the overall design of the process Includes multimedia content, videos and active tables and diagrams Enable the user to add his/her own data and conditions and get results relevant to his/her situation. Tables (25 approx) Provides review and critical analysis of the data on currently available OSN membranes Glossary Summary of the main terms used in OSN