Solute transport from aqueous mixture throught supported ionic liquid membrane by pervaporation

By using SILMs in a nanofiltration ceramic module we increased the separation factor of the solute from 0.4 up to 177. On the other hand, the average permeating flux of the solute decreased from 34.3 g/(m2h) to 3.86 g/(m2h). Although the separation process with SILM was in one order of magnitude slower, its selectivity increased by more than two orders of magnitude, which shows a good potential for improving downstream separation processes. The binary system that we used as a case study (removal of 1,3propanediol from aqueous solution) has a practical application in biotransformation processes, where the fermentation broth from K. pneumoniae is normally used.