1) Experimental studies have been made on permeability coefficients to a weak electrolyte of benzoic acid across a highly-charged polystyrene sulfonic acid-collodion membrane whose effective negative charge density is 0.12
M. The differential permeability coefficient
Pm is defined as
Pm=Δ
lJm/ (
C2-
C1), where
Jm is the flux of benzoic acid in moles per sec across unit area of the membrane that separates two aqueous solutions of the weak electrolyte at different concentrations
C2 and
C1 (
C2<
C1). Al is the membrane thickness.
2 It was found that at γ=
C2/
C1=constant,
Pm is nearly constant of 2.5-4×10
-9 when
C2 is above 10
-3. But below 10
-3, Pm dependence on
C2 is more complicated and dependent on γ.
Pm decreases as
C2 decreases at γ=50, but
Pm increases as
C2 decreases at γ=2. These observations are not in agreement with the results on transport of strong electrolytes such as KC1 across a charged membrane in which
Pm has been shown to decrease to zero as
C2 decreases at both low and high γ.
3 Considering concentration distributions of dissociated (φ-) and undissociated (Hφ) species of benzoic acid in aqueous solutions and the membrane phase, it is found that the transport of φ- across the stagnant layer on the side of
C2 solution is a rate-determing step at low γ, and the concentration dependence of
Jm is given by an equation of
Jm=constant X (Cφ-)″, where (Cφ-)″ is the φ- concentration in the
C2 solution. Furthermore, the transport of Hφacross the membrane phase is a rate-determing step at high γ (for example 5, 10, 50) and the concentration dependence of
Jm is given as
Jm=constant × (C
Hφ)″-(C
Hφ)″ where (C
Hφ)″ and (C
Hφ)″ ' is the HO concentrations in the
C2 and
C1 solutions, respectively.
View full abstract