Pervaporation technology can be successfully employed to dehydrate tetrahydrofuran-water mixtures found in the pharmaceutical and specialty chemical industry. The conventional azeotropic distillation of this separation requires a high amount of chemical entrainer to perform the separation and generates significant waste. Pervaporation does not require additional chemicals to push past the azeotrope making it a competitive unit operation.

In this study, a design of a hybrid pervaporation-distillation system has been compared to a conventional THF dehydration. Vendor specifications were been utilized to model the hybrid system and several membrane areas were studied. Dehydration studies were performed on a lab scale to study the effect of feed concentration, feed temperature and permeate-side pressure on membrane performance. A life cycle assessment of the process was performed to compare the environmental impacts of both processes.

This study shows that the addition of a pervaporation unit to a conventional system is a competitive separation. Process improvements that yield cost reduction, energy savings, and solvent reductions are all potential benefits of using pervaporation over existing practices. The use of pervaporation is well suited for separations in the pharmaceutical and specialty chemical industry and leads to a green drying process.