Characterization of hemodialysis membranes by inverse size exclusion chromatography

Inverse size exclusion chromatography (i-SEC) was used to characterize three different cellulosic hollow fiber hemodialysis membranes, i.e. low-flux cuprophan and hemophan and high-flux RC-HP400A. With the i-SEC technique the pore size distribution and porosity of a membrane can be determined and adsorption phenomena can be studied. The membranes showed clear differences in pore size and porosity, the high-flux RC-HP400A membrane has a larger pore size as well as a higher porosity. For all the membranes it was found that the elution curves were best described by a homoporous pore volume distribution. It appeared that the bound or non-freezing water in the membranes was at least partly accessible to solutes. The test molecules creatinine and vitamin B 12 both adsorbed to the cellulosic membranes. The adsorption behavior of creatinine was strongly dependent on the NaCl concentration present. The observations could be explained by assuming that cuprophan and RC-HP400A are negatively charged whereas hemophan is positively charged due to the modification with N,N-diethylaminoethyl ether. The net charge of the hemophan is smaller

Free energy calculations of small molecules in dense amorphous polymers. Effect on the initial guess configuration in molecular dynamics studies

The excess free energy of small molecules in the amorphous polymers poly(ethylene) and poly(dimethylsiloxane) was calculated, using the test-particle-insertion method. The method was applied to polymer configurations obtained from molecular dynamics simulations with differently prepared initial guess configurations. It was found that the calculated solubility coefficients strongly depend on the quality of the initial guess configuration. Slow compression of dilute systems, during which process only the repulsive parts of the nonbonded Lennard-Jones potentials are taken into account, yields polymer melts which are better relaxed, and which offer lower solubilities for guest molecules compared with polymer melts generated at the experimental density or prepared by compressing boxes with soft-core nonbonded potentials. For the last two methods initial stresses relax by straining the internal modes (bond angles, torsion angles) of the chain

Membrane processes for sustainable industrial growth

This article offers a general survey of membrane technology and related processes by briefly looking at market sizes, industry structure, and recent and potential future developments