A team led by Hervé Duval at Ecole Centrale Paris, France, has reported the forced penetration of large hydrosoluble polymer chains through pores in a membrane.
The team measured the rejection coefficient Robs from retentate and permeate mean concentrations, and its corrected value R including polymer accumulation at the membrane. The variations of R as a function of solvent flow rate per pore in adimensional units collapse into the same curve well fitted by de Gennes’ “suction model”. This curve, universal for flexible polymers in good solvents, leads to an estimate of the critical penetration flow.
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