Membrane liquid loss of supported liquid membrane based on n-decanol

It is well known that the stability of a supported liquid membrane (SLM) is affected by many factors, such as the supporting material, pore size, oper ating parameters, etc. The instability of SLM with n-decanol as organic pha se is quantitatively studied in this paper by measuring the membrane liquid (NIL) loss from the supporting membranes. It has been observed that the ML loss of different membranes is somehow related to their swelling. The swel ling of supporting membranes based on cellulose acetate, mixed cellulose es ters and PVDF appears to be non-isotropic. The ML loss dependence on runnin g time and on solution flux is reported here. It was observed that the solu tion concentration and the concentration gradient through the membrane infl uence the ML loss. The effects of the membrane preparation, cell type and f low pattern were also investigated. SLM lifetime experiments have shown tha t the residual quantity of ML at the critical point of pore breaking, with different supporting membranes, are rather different. The lifetime of SLMs depends not only on the ability of the supporting membrane to retain the NI L, but also on their ability to delay the formation of water channels. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.