In pervaporation, a liquid mixture is fed through a membrane.
The mixture components permeate selectively through the membrane
and vaporize on the other side of the membrane where
low pressure is maintained. By this means, there is a selective
removal of organic compounds from dilute aqueous solutions.
There are several studies regarding ethanol pervaporation and they
relate mainly to the use of different membranes. Specifically the
pervaporation of ethanol from lignocellulosic residues is reported
by Gaykawad et al. (2013) with barley straw and willow wood
using commercial polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) membranes.
Zhang et al. (2012) studied the membrane fouling in pervaporation
of ethanol from food waste after a flocculation–filtration pretreatment.
Aroujalian and Raisi (2009) study the effects of various operating
parameters such as feed temperature, permeate side
pressure, and Reynolds number (volumetric flow rate) on the total
flux, and ethanol selectivity of a porous membrane-based pervaporation
process with 2% aqueous ethanol solutions, simulating an
ethanol content from lignocellulosic residues. O’Brien et al.
(2004) related an efficient system of coupled fermentation and
pervaporation for ethanol from corn fiber hydrolisates.
Studies of pervaporation in ethanol production hitherto have
not used banana waste as a substrate for ethanol production. Thus
the aim of this research is to evaluate if pervaporation can be used
in the production of ethanol from banana and to investigate the
effects of operating variables and of lignocellulosic biomass fermentation
by-products on membrane performance for the recovery
of ethanol by using pervaporation.