Sorption and Diffusion of Water and Ethanol in Polyethersulfone Hollow Fiber Membranes

Study on solubility and transport phenomena of penetrant in polymer membrane is of significance for appraising separation ability, selecting membrane materials, designing or exploring membrane separation technology. There are many ways, in which the sorption/desorption method is a more acceptable one for its relatively simple procedures and affable conditions, to study the transport properties of penetrant in polymer. As our best knowledge, many experiments and measured data are reported for flat sheet, while no for hollow fiber membrane using sorption/desorption method. In this paper, we hope to appraise the separation ability of hollow fibers through sorption experiments of water and ethanol vapors in fibers by a proposed separation factor in infinite dilution.