Chemicals, organic energy consumption

Organic nitriles are used extensively industrially as precursors for the production of a wide variety of amides and acids by chemical synthesis. In recent years, considerable attention has been paid to enzymatic hydrolysis of nitriles as an alternative route to the chemical synthesis of amides and carboxylic acids. Conventional chemical conversion of nitriles suffers from several disadvantages, including the requirement for highly acidic or basic reaction conditions, high energy consumption, formation of undesirable by-products, low yields and environmental problems due to the generation of waste salts. 

Pervaporation is a membrane process in which a liquid is maintained on the feed side of a membrane and permeate is removed as a vapor on the downstream side of the membrane. Pervaporation is used, because of its low energy consumption and low cost, to separate dissolved organics from water, purify waste water or volatile chemicals, and break azeotropes. Pervaporation plants range from processing a few grams per hour up to thousands of tons per year. For waste water treatment flow of less than 76 L min pervaporation is more cost-effective than other treatment options, such as chemical oxidation, ultraviolet destruction, air stripping followed by carbon adsorption, steam stripping, or distillation/incineration [262]. 

---