Membrane dehydration of vaporous feeds by countercurrent condensable sweep

摘要

A process for the dehydration of a vaporous mixture. The basic process involves directing a predominantly condensable water vapor-containing vaporous mixture against the feed side of a membrane while maintaining the feed near saturation without condensing it, directing a condensable vapor sweep stream past the permeate side of the membrane in a countercurrent flow, thereby transporting water vapor in the vaporous mixture from the feed side to the permeate side of the membrane to form a noncondensed combined permeate side mixture of condensable vapor and transported water vapor.