EngD position: Design and evaluation of a membrane process for the recovery of ethanol from high pH media

In Europe alone, each year hundreds of million tons of valuable materials are lost in industrial processing. To increase the yield of these processes, it is important to reduce and/or valorise waste streams. Therefore, various processes that involve the use of alcohols as (anti)solvents and the application of pH switches to recover and purify valuable compounds from waste streams in the biotech and chemical industry have been developed. However, the recovery of (anti)solvents using conventional techniques like distillation requires large amounts of energy.

Membrane technology could be an alternative separation technology to make the biotech, chemical and other industries more circular, flexible and energy-efficient.

The Recircanol project was set up to study the recovery of ethanol from alkaline-ethanol media at high pH using membrane technology. In this project, Greencovery, Pervatech, SolSep, Nobian, ISPT and the University of Twente closely collaborate to generate new scientific and technological knowledge on pH-stable and solvent-resistant nanofiltration membranes for use at alkaline conditions, and on pervaporation membranes for the purification of valuable components and/or the recovery of (anti)solvents.

As EngD student in the Recircanol project, you will:
Design membrane-based separation processes for the recovery of ethanol from alkaline-ethanol media at high pH, with a special focus on Greencovery’s process.
Perform lab- and/or module-scale nanofiltration experiments to support or validate your process design with real measurement data.
Assess the techno-economic feasibility of your designed processes for use in industrial applications characterized by extreme pH.