MTR unveils new solvent dehydration product line for dehydration of Ethanol, Isopropanol, Acetonitrile and THF

April 2017

MTR has been developing cutting edge membrane products for dehydration of various hydrophilic and hydrophobic solvents and has now launched a highly successful membrane process for solvent dehydration.

Many commercial hydrophilic solvents form azeotropes or have vapor-liquid equilibrium (VLE) pinch points with water, which makes solvent recovery by conventional distillation difficult. Solvents that form such azeotropes or have such pinch points include isopropyl alcohol (IPA), acetone, methyl ethyl ketone (MEK), ethyl acetate, ethanol, butanol and tetrahydrofuran, etc. Molecular sieve drying is possible, but is energy intensive and is generally not economical for situations where the water concentration is more than 2-3 wt%. Pressure swing distillation or extractive distillation is often used for feed streams containing more than a few percent water, but the capital cost of the columns needed is an issue, as well as the high operating cost caused by the high steam consumption of the distillation process.

Our zeolite membrane process offers a simple alternative to distillation technology. Vapor permeation of water through the robust zeolite membrane allows almost complete recovery of dry organic solvent, which can be reused without further processing or treatment. The water content of the solvent is reduced to the 0.1 to 1.0 % range.