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, operating parameters, etc. The instability of SLM with n-decanol as organic phase is quantitatively studied in this paper by measuring the membrane liquid (ML) loss from the supporting membranes. It has been observed that the ML loss of different membranes is somehow related to their swelling. The swelling of supporting membranes based on cellulose acetate, mixed cellulose esters and PVDF appears to be non-isotropic. The ML loss dependence on running time and on solution flux is reported here. It was observed that the solution concentration and the concentration gradient through the membrane influence the ML loss. The effects of the membrane preparation, cell type and flow pattern were also investigated. SLM lifetime experiments have shown that 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 ML, but also on their ability to delay the formation of water channels.