Pervaporation: Promissory Method for the Bioethanol Separation of Fermentation

It is clear that biofuels have a positive impact in the social, environmental and economic aspects of our world. In Brazil, ethanol is produced from sugarcane and is mainly used as a biofuel for cars. However, much research is being done in order to reduce the price of ethanol. With this goal in mind, pervaporation is being studied as a recovery process for ethanol from wine from fermentation, and to simplify the distillation step in order to reduce its production costs. More specifically, this research project studies ethanol separation by pervaporation from ethanol-water mixtures. The pervaporation was evaluated at 30 °C using a hydrophobic membrane of Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) for ethanol recovery, using ethanol concentrations characteristic of sugarcane fermentation. Keywords: Fermentation, ethanol, membranes processes, pervaporation.