Pervaporative dehydration of 96 vol% ethanol solutionwas used as an experimental model for the determination of hybrid alginate membranes separation performance. Series of membranes filled with different metal oxides particles (magnetite, zinc, silver, titanium(IV) and chromium(III) oxide) were prepared and the effect of the oxide's nature and filling ratio on pervaporative transport and separation effectiveness was discussed. Hierarchical agglomerative cluster analysis of the evaluated parameters was applied to divide all membranes into four clusters, with the most effective comprising of 10 and 15 wt% magnetite loaded for which pervaporative separation index reached the value of 56.79 and 76.59, respectively. (C) 2019 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.