Adjusted Track-Etched Permeability Plots
I recalculated the permeability of the track-etched membranes using Poiseuille’s Law this time assuming that the pore diameters specified by Sterlitech are smaller then the actual pore sizes. For the first recalculation I assumed that the “real pores” are 20% larger then specified by Sterlitech.
As shown above the resultant Poiseuille’s Law predictions are much closer to those predicated by Sterlitech as well as those experimentally obtained. For the second recalculation I assumed that all the measured pore dimensions provided by Sterlitech are 20nm smaller then the “real pores”.
As shown this assumption seems to be very close to the experimental measurements.
The primary purpose of Maryna’s work imaging the TE membranes is to try and answer this very question. It would be good if we could bring together these two pieces of work. I can easily see a paper coming together in which we make a diect comparison between our material and TE membranes.
How we stack up against other materials is extremely important. We have some numbers, but without some structural understanding of the other types of membranes, we are quite limited in what we can say. I think TE membranes offer the best opportunity for comparison, if we can piece together what they actually look like internally…
Poiseuille’s flow makes the assumption that you’re going straight through a pipe. What happens when the pipe is not straight, but twisting. This is likely the case in TE membranes based on Maryna’s cross-sectional SEMs. Are we just compensating for the decrease in permeability by plugging in a smaller pore diameter?