Factors affecting adsorption of organic solutes on cellulose acetate in an aqueous solution system

Summary The adsorption properties of esters, aldehydes, ethers and amides on cellulose acetate, which is commonly used as a reverse osmosis membrane material, in an aqueous solution system were measured by high-performance liquid chromatography. The adsorption property was characterized with the specific retention volume. For a noncyclic homologous series the logarithm of the specific retention volume was linearly correlated with the logarithm of the partition coefficient between 1-octanol and water. The fact that the slopes of these regression lines are almost identical confirms that the dominant effect on adsorption is the hydrophobic interaction between cellulose acetate and the solute molecule. The intercept represents the effect of the polar groups on adsorption. The effect of the polar group decreases as follows: C(O)O, CO, HCON > CH₃CON > OH, O.