Driving force for hydraulic and pervaporative transport in homogeneous membranes

Experiments were designed to demonstrate that the chemical potential gradient required for liquid transport through swollen network polymer membranes manifests itself as a concentration gradient and that the rate of transport is independent of how this gradient is established. The fluxes of various liquids through a crosslinked rubber membrane were measured in hydraulic and pervaporation modes of permeation. The pressure applied downstream in the latter act simply to fix the activity of the liquid in the downstream membrane surface. The experiments show the flux is a unique function of this activity, and it does not matter how it is established. Sorption data were used to convert these results into a plot of flux versus concentration differential across the membrane which was analyzed by Fick's law using a model for the concentration dependence of the diffusion coefficient. Measured ceiling fluxes for pervaporation for a number of liquids were found to be the same as those estimated from hydraulic permeation data. A simple mathematical representation for an ideal system is used as a pedagogical device to demonstrate the conclusions.