Different viscosity grade sodium alginate (NaAlg) membranes and modified sodium alginate membranes prepared by solution casting method and crosslinked with glutaraldehyde in methanol: water (75:25) mixture were used in pervaporation (PV) separation of water + acetic acid (HAc) and water + isopropanol mixtures at 30 degreesC for feed mixtures containing 10-50 mass% of water. Equilibrium swelling experiments were performed at 30degreesC in order to study the stability of membrane in the fluid environment. Membranes prepared from low viscosity grade sodium alginate showed the highest separation selectivity of 15:7 for 10 mass% of water in the feed mixture, whereas membranes prepared with high viscosity grade sodium alginate exhibited a selectivity of 14.4 with a slightly higher flux than that observed for the low viscosity grade sodium alginate membrane. In an effort to increase the PV performance, low viscosity grade sodium alginate was modified by adding 10 mass% of polyethylene glycol (PEG) with varying amounts of poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) from 5 to 20 mass%. The modified membranes containing 10 mass% PEG and 5 mass% PVA showed an increase in selectivity up to 40.3 with almost no change in flux. By increasing the amount of PVA from 10 to 20 mass% and keeping 10 mass% of PEG, separation selectivity decreased systematically, but flux increased with increasing PVA content. The modified sodium alginate membrane with 5% PVA was further studied for the PV separation of water + isopropanol mixture for which highest selectivity of 3591 was observed. Temperature effect on pervaporation separation was studied for all the membranes; with increasing temperature, flux increased while selectivity decreased. Calculated Arrhenius parameters for permeation and diffusion processes varied depending upon the nature of the membrane. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.