Hydrophobicity and State of Water

Contact angle measurements determine the hydrophobicity of membranes - the higher the hydrophobicity the greater the expected adsorption (Gourley et al (1994)). Contact angle measurements 

The state of water in a membrane can become important for RO membranes as it is often related to rejection. Murphy and dePinho (1995) studied the state of water in RO and UF membrane active layers using attenuated total reflection fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR). Water content increased with porosity, and the strucmre of the water was dependent on average pore size. Large clusters of water were linked to low salt rejection, whereas low association of water in clusters indicated a low permeability to salt. 

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