A combined experimental and molecular simulation study of lube oil dewaxing solvent recovery using membrane

Growing standards in energy and the environment requires energy-saving technology in organic solvent purification. Membrane technology offers an alternative to energy-intensive conventional separation processes for solvent recovery, for example, the recovery of dewaxing solvents from lube oil filtrates, which is a typical example of the “de-bottlenecking” of a traditional process. In this study, lubricating oil dewaxing solvent recovery by two nanofiltration membranes was studied. The membranes used are commercially available membranes with molecular weight cutoff 280 and 600 Da (PM280 and PMS600). In order to understand the entire membrane separation process and study the mechanism of membrane separation, the structures of the two membrane materials and the adsorption and diffusion behavior of lubricant oil components on and in these two materials were studied by using the molecular simulation method. The results explain some phenomena in the experiment and indicate the separation mechanism of the two membranes.