Permeability studies with cellulosic membranes

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Abstract
The true diffusive permeabilities of commercial, modified commercial, and laboratory cast regenerated cellulose membranes were measured with a batch dialyzer using 15 solutes (sodium chloride, nine radioactively labelled organic solutes, and five low molecular weight proteins) ranging in molecular weight from 58 to 68,000. Additional measurements included membrane thickness, water content, and strength properties, as well as equilibrium solute partition coefficients and solute diffusion coefficients in free solution. All commercial cellophanes were similar in sodium chloride permeability on a unit thickness basis and were significantly less permeable than hydrophilic wet gel membranes. This difference was attributed to the irreversible collapse of membrane structure upon drying. As the solute characteristic size increased, permeability decreased more sharply with commercial cellophane than with wet gel cellulose, the ratio between the two becoming an order of magnitude for large solutes. The ratio between the solute diffusion coefficient in the membrane and in free solution decreased exponentially with increasing solute size. The results suggest further work for higher permeability cellulosic hemodialysis membranes.

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