DETERMINATION OF PORE-SIZE AND PORE-SIZE DISTRIBUTION .2. DIALYSIS MEMBRANES

In porous media such as adsorbents, catalysts or sandy soil, the porosity - the size and distribution and specific surface area of the capillary pores - is an important factor providing such media with their respective functions of adsorbency, catalysis and permeability. Largely, the synthetic membranes used in separation may also be thought of as porous media. In dialysis membranes, the area in which water is present when the membrane is wet acts as a channel for the solute. Thus, the proportion of water present in the membrane (that is, the prove volume), the width of the layer of water acting as the solute channel (that is, the pore size) and the pore size distribution are the main factors governing the function of dialysis membranes. Therefore, it is the purpose of this review to provide a general description of the concept and determination of pore size; the size of pores in dialysis membranes in the broad sense and pore size distribution, pore volume, etc.