Enhanced ethanol recovery of PDMS mixed matrix membranes with hydrophobically modified ZIF-90

•Hydrophobic modification of ZIF-90 particles by DLA via imine condensation.•DLA-ZIF-90 has better affinity towards PDMS than ZIF-90.•PDMS MMM with DLA-ZIF-90 exhibits improved adsorption selectivity.•Separation performance of PDMS/DLA-ZIF-90 for ethanol recovery is optimized.•PDMS/DLA-ZIF-90 shows superior performance to most other PDMS-based membranes.