component can penetrate the membrane, is defined by: where (piH - piL) represents the difference in the partial

pressure of component across the membrane and is the thickness. One may usefully define a local separation factor () by reference to the situation sketched in Figure 8.2.: The flux ratio is given by: where =PH/PL is the pressure ratio across the membrane. If the back pressure is negligible, V o and the separation factor approach the permeability ratio (a): This is 111e most favorable situation. Any back pressure will reduce the separation factor to a lower value, and the permeability ratio is therefore sometimes referred to as the intrinsic separation factor, or the selectivity. For an inert (no adsorbing) micro porous solid the permeability ratio is essentially the ratio of Knudsen diffusivities, which is simply the inverse ratio of the square of the molecular weights. Such selectivity are therefore modest anti too small to be of much practical interest. If, however, the pores are small enough to offer significant steric hindrance to diffusion or if one or both of the components arc adsorbed on the pore wall or dissolved within the solid matrix, much larger separation factors arc possible. For such a system the permeability depends on the product of the solubility (or the adsorption

equilibrium constant) and the diffusivity of the adsorbed or dissolved species; to a first approximation we may write: This expression is not exact, since it assumes system linearity and ignores the possibility of parallel contributions from other nonselective transparent mechanism such as Poiseuille flow. Nevertheless it serves to delineate the main Factors controlling membrane selectivity. Clearly a high selectivity may be achieved from a large difference in either diffusivity or equilibrium Constant or from a combination of both these factors. Unfortunately there is