Porous membrane design

Chandrasekaran and Shaw have d cribed a highly engineered device for delivery of drugs through the skin. It consists of multi de laminations of Higuchi-type layers and porous membranes designed to give a predetermined temporal pattern of dn release which is not zero order from the device itself but has the desired systemic effect when the permeation characteristics of the skin are considered. 

Another possibility of constructing a chiral membrane system is to prepare a solution of the chiral selector which is retained between two porous membranes, acting as an enantioselective liquid carrier for the transport of one of the enantiomers from the feed solution of the racemate to the receiving side (Fig. 1-5). This system is often referred to as membrane-assisted separation. The selector should not be soluble in the solvent used for the elution of the enantiomers, whose transport is driven by a gradient in concentration or pH between the feed and receiving phases. As a drawback common to all these systems, it should be mentioned that the transport of one enantiomer usually decreases when the enantiomer ratio in the permeate diminishes. Nevertheless, this can be overcome by designing a system where two opposite selectors are used to transport the two enantiomers of a racemic solution simultaneously, as it was already applied in W-tube experiments [171]. 

The ion pair extraction by flow injection analysis (FIA) has been used to analyze sodium dodecyl sulfate and sodium dodecyl ether (3 EO) sulfate among other anionic surfactants. The solvating agent was methanol and the phase-separating system was designed with a PTFE porous membrane permeable to chloroform but impermeable to the aqueous solution. The method is applicable to concentrations up to 1.25 mM with a detection limit of 15 pM [304]. 

The porous membrane templates described above do exhibit three-dimensionality, but with limited interconnectedness between the discrete tubelike structures. Porous structures with more integrated pore—solid architectures can be designed using templates assembled from discrete solid objects or su-pramolecular structures. One class of such structures are three-dimensionally ordered macroporous (or 3-DOM) solids, which are a class of inverse opal structures. The design of 3-DOM structures is based on the initial formation of a colloidal crystal composed of monodisperse polymer or silica spheres assembled in a close-packed arrangement. The interconnected void spaces of the template, 26 vol % for a face-centered-cubic array, are subsequently infiltrated with the desired material. 

Considerable activity has been generated on composite reverse osmosis membranes by Japanese researchers. Patent applications were recently published, for example, covering research at Teijin Ltd. on interfacially formed membranes prepared from polydiallylamines (17) and from amine adducts of trls-(glycidyl) isocyanurate (18). Both types of membranes were formed on micro-porous polysulfone supports. Kurihara and coworkers have developed a composite membrane, designated PEC-1000, which is formed by an... 

Figure 4.3 — Experimental designs using a planar porous membrane (A) and a silicone hollow fibre membrane (B) for the implementation of sensors based on integrated liquid-liquid extraction and detection. (Reproduced from [61] with permission of the American Chemical Society).

Modification of polymeric membrane for better adhesion of the extractant or designing it so that interface between the phases is immobilized at the porous membrane [84,85]. 

The following list of basic safety procedures are not designed to frighten you but to ensure that you have a long and safe career in photography. Remember that your eyes, lungs, and skin are porous membranes and can absorb chemical vapors, liquids, and powders. Most of the procedures are common sense. 

Thin alumina membranes (Anodise ) with two different nominal pore diameters (20 nm and 200 nm) were obtained commercially (Whatman International Ltd., Maidstone, Kent, UK). These two types of membranes, designated subsequently as A20 and A200 respectively, had a thickness of 50 pm and an overall diameter of either 25 of 47 mm. X-ray diffraction analysis showed that the alumina in the as received membranes was almost amorphous. Subsequent thermal treatment up to 950 °C produced a crystalline structure (y-alumina), without any significant collapse in the porous structure. Here we describe, in general, the characterisation of the untreated membranes. 

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