Effect of trace amounts of water on organic solvent transport through y-alunima membranes with varying pore sizes

Roy Chowdhury, Sankhanilay and Keizer, Klaas and Elshof ten, Johan E. and Blank, Dave H.A. (2004) Effect of trace amounts of water on organic solvent transport through y-alunima membranes with varying pore sizes. Langmuir, 20 (11). pp. 4548-1552. ISSN 0743-7463

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Abstract:	The transport behavior of toluene and n-hexane in -alumina membranes with different pore diameters was studied. It was shown that the permeability of water-lean hexane and toluene is in agreement with Darcy's law down to membrane pore diameters of 3.5 nm. The presence of molar water fractions of 5-8·10-4 in these solvents led to a permeability decrease of the -alumina layer by a factor of 2-4 depending on pore size. In general, a lower permeability was found for hexane than for toluene. Moreover, in the presence of water a minimum applied pressure of 0.5-1.5 bar was required to induce net liquid flow through the membrane. These phenomena were interpreted in terms of capillary condensation of water in membrane pores with a size below a certain critical diameter. This is thought to lead to substantial blocking of these pores for transport, so that the effective tortuosity of the membrane for transport of hydrophobic solvents increases.
Item Type:	Article
Copyright:	© 2004 American Chemical Society
Faculty:	Science and Technology (TNW)
Research Group:	Inorganic Materials Science (IMS)
Link to this item:	http://purl.utwente.nl/publications/47727
Official URL:	http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/la0364237
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Metis ID: 218573