Comparison of Capillary Flow Porometry (CFP) and Liquid Extrusion Porometry (LEP) Techniques for the Characterization of Porous and Face Mask Membranes

Abstract

This work aims to study the characterization of several membrane filters by using capillary flow porometry (CFP) and liquid extrusion porometry (LEP) to obtain their pore size distributions (PSD) and mean pore diameters (davg). Three polymeric membranes of different materials namely, polyethylene (PET), cellulose nitrate (CN), and FM (face mask), and one inorganic (namely, alumina Al2O3) from ultrafiltration (UF)/microfiltration (MF) and particle separation were analyzed using a pressure constant fluid/liquid extrusion porometer, developed at institute de la filtration et techniques séparatives (IFTS). Several porosimetric fluids have been used to wet and penetrate into the porous/fiber structure. The results show the accuracy of the setup on characterizing membranes in the UF/MF range by CFP, with reasonable agreement with nominal data of the filters. Additionally, LEP extension of the equipment obtained good agreement with nominal data and the CFP results, while filters presenting a microstructure of highly interconnected pores (face mask) resulted in clear differences in terms of resulting PSD and average sizes when CFP and LEP results are compared.