Texaco Inc.

Vatsal M Shah

Craig R Bartels

Mordechai Pasternak

John Reale, Jr

David Tuohey

Apparatus for breaking or separating a liquid mixture or emulsion having two or more components. The apparatus includes a closed vessel having one or more sequentially connected filtering compartments holding a filtering element such as a membrane assembly capable of achieving a multi-stage pervaporation to separate out a vaporous component of the solution. The apparatus further includes a bypass facility which interconnects adjacent filtering compartments. To compensate for the loss of heat energy during the vaporization segments, the residual liquid solution is bypassed into a second vaporization phase, the bypass facility including heating means for maintaining the residual solution of a predetermined liquid temperature prior to its entering the second or subsequent filtering phase.

Pervaporation vessel

A mixture of alcohol, such as methanol, and organic oxygenate, such as dimethyl carbonate, is treated to recover product of decreased methanol content by pervaporation across a composite membrane of a polyvinyl alcohol and a polyacrylic acid on a polyacrylonitrile support layer.

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Wappingers Falls, NY, United States of America

Vatsal M Shah