Separation of p‐xylene from ternary xylene mixture using silicalite‐1 membrane: process optimization studies Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • AbstractBACKGROUND: The design of experiments (DoE) is applied to the process optimization of p‐xylene (pX) separation from its isomers m‐xylene (mX) and o‐xylene (oX) mixture using silicalite‐1 membrane supported on α‐alumina. A central composite design (CCD) coupled with response surface methodology (RSM) was used to correlate the effect of two separation process variables, temperature (150–250 °C) and pX feed partial pressure (0.10–0.26 kPa) to three responses: (i) pX flux; (ii) pX/oX separation factor; and (iii) pX/mX separation factor. The significant factors affecting each response were elucidated from the analysis of variance (ANOVA). The interaction between two variables was investigated systematically based on three‐dimensional response surface plots.RESULTS: The optimization criteria were used to maximize the value of pX flux, pX/mX separation factor and pX/oX separation factor. The optimum pX flux of 5.94 × 10−6 mol m−2 s−1, pX/oX separation factor of 19 and pX/mX separation factor of 20 were obtained at a temperature of 198 °C and pX feed partial pressure of 0.22 kPa.CONCLUSIONS: The experimental results were in good agreement with the simulated values obtained from the proposed models, with an average error of ± 2.90%. In comparison with the conventional approach, DoE provides better flexibility of the process studies and a useful guideline for the membrane process operation for pX separation. Copyright © 2009 Society of Chemical Industry

authors

  • Yeong, Yin Fong
  • Abdullah, Ahmad Zuhairi
  • Ahmad, Abdul Latif
  • Bhatia, Subhash

publication date

  • 2010

number of pages

  • 9

start page

  • 216

end page

  • 225

volume

  • 85

issue

  • 2