Experimental and computational study of transport mechanism of organic solvents through ion-exchange membranes

Ion-exchange membranes are found in various practical applications, e.g. in electrodialysis, diffusion dialysis, fuel cells or pervaporation. To develop new membrane materials with predicted selectivity and improving the effectiveness of the membrane separation processes, it is very important to know the influence of the inner membrane structure on the transport characteristics of the membrane. This cooperation project will be focused on study of transport mechanism of organic solvents through ion-exchange membranes having different structure. The aim of Polish research group is to investigate experimentally different types of the ion-exchange membranes solvated by organic solvents of different polarity. The following properties will be measured: sorption, IR-spectra and pervaporation. The target of Austrian group is to investigate experimentally the structural features of the membranes, dissociation of the ion-exchange groups and binding energy of the membranes with organic solvents. Based on the analysis of the obtained experimental and calculation results we will find out the correlation between the membrane polymer morphology and organic solvent transport and develop a physical model of the transport mechanism in the membranes.