Solvent transport through pore, effect

Effect of Size of Water Molecule on Solvent Transport through Pore... 

Surprisingly, intuition fails to predict the behavior of the same solute and solvent in a membrane with a uniform pore size larger than both the solvent and solute. The expectation that such a membrane will provide no rejection of the solute has been refuted repeatedly. Indeed, careful experiments indicate that partial rejection of the solute occurs even when the solute is considerably smaller (say 1/1 Oth as large as the pore size) (Miller, 1992 Deen, 1987 Ho and Sirkar, 1992 Happel and Brenner, 1965). The extent of rejection increases monotonically to the total rejection limit as the solute size approaches the pore size. These effects arise both from entropic suppression of partitioning and from augmented hydrodynamic resistance to transport through the fine pores. Thus, in this case, for a porous membrane, thermodynamic partitioning can play a role in the physical chemical processes of transport. 

In the presence of solutes with small molecular weights, concentration polarization is likely to occur but with much less effect than in the case of ultrafiltration as explained in Section 12.2.1. A theoretical model concerning separation of sucrose and raffinose by ultrafiltration membranes has been proposed by Baker et al. [53] which assumes transport of solvent and solute exclusively through pores. This model can apply to ceramic nanofilters as they exhibit a porous structure with a pore size distribution. The retention characteristics of a given membrane for a given solute is basically determined by its pore-size distribution. The partial volume flux jy through the pores which show no rejection to the solute can be expressed as a fraction of the total volume flux fy. 

The choice of suitable surfactants and additional chemicals for the decontamination of source zones largely depends on the type of pollutant and the structure of the soil (mainly on adsorption behaviour and hydraulic conductivity). Adsorbed and solid pollutants or very viscous liquid phases cannot be mobilised. Preformed microemulsions, co-solvents or co-surfactants can be favourably used for such contaminations in order to enhance the solubilisation capacity of surfactants. NAPL with low viscosity can easily be mobilised and also effectively solubilised by microemulsion-forming surfactant systems. Mobilisation is usually much more efficient. It is achieved by reducing the interfacial tension between NAPL and water. Droplets of organic liquids, which are trapped in the pore bodies, can more easily be transported through the pore necks at lower interfacial tension (see Fig. 10.2). The onset of mobilisation is determined by the trapping number, which is dependent on... 

Polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene (PE) microporous separators (e.g. with 20 jxm thickness and 50% porosity) are used for electrically separating the positive electrode and negative electrode. SEM of microporous separator is shown in Figure 12.1.4. As organic solvents are wettable to PP and PE, the solvents can penetrate into such micropores. The pore size of the separator is normally less than 0.5 (tm, in order to ensure that fine active ceramic particles of electrodes do not pass through the separator. A PP/PE/PP layered separator is often used for practical Li-ion batteries because of a shut down effect. When battery temperature approaches tbe melting point of PE (130°C), micropores of only PE are suddenly closed, and the battery reaction coming from Li-ion transportation is stopped by tbe separator. 

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