LIQUID MEMBRANE TECHNIQUE FOR SEPARATION OF BENZENE AND HEXANE MIXTURE.

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe effect of operating parameters on the batch scale separation ofhydrocarbon mixture (benzene and hexane) with emulsion liquid membranetechnique is reported. An emulsion liquid membrane is a film composed ofsurfactants and their solvent. The sparkleen detergent is used as surfactantand heavy mineral oil as solvent to receive the permeates. The parametersthat influenced the permeation are, composition of feed, contact time withsolvent, ratio of volume of surfactant solution to volume of hydrocarbonfeed, surfactant concentration. The best conditions for the separation in thisstudy were found to be: composition of feed (mole fraction ofbenzene=0.5245), contact time of 10min. , ratio of volumes of surfactantsolution to feed of 0.4 and surfactant concentration of 1wt%. Theseconditions gave a separation factor of (8.0). the process efficiency isevaluated by the separation factor is a parameter to evaluate the processefficiency with respect to distillation process.