Recent progress in pervaporation membranes for furfural recovery: A mini review

Abstract

Furfural (FUR) is a vital platform chemical, which can produce >1600 chemicals. To satisfy the high needs for FUR, the pervaporation (PV)-assisted FUR production process is developed to improve the efficiency of the FUR separation and lower the energy requirements compared to the conventional distillation. PV process is governed by membrane materials that determine the energy cost of the separation unit. For the FUR production, the reported studies mainly focus on the use of polymeric membranes and mixed matrix membranes. And, the recent literatures indicate a dimension of PV membranes towards FUR that updates a higher step, but no reviews reported the latest development. Herein, an all-around summary, i.e., the material types, separation performance, fabrication methods as well as the feature of PV-assisted FUR production process, is given; furthermore, the key issues of membranes are clarified, including the interaction among polymer chains, fillers and FUR molecules.