Analytical grade EA was purchased from Tennants Distribution
Limited, UK. SoA (497% purity) was purchased from Sigma Al-
drich Limited, UK. EA was chosen as a solvent because it is com-
monly used in industry. SoA was chosen as a solute, for its good
solubility in EA and its low price, which are important factors
when carrying out experiments at a large scale and using highly
concentrated solutions, such as in this study.
Flat sheets of PuraMems S600 (PM S600, A4 size) were pro-
vided by Evonik MET. Evonik MET also provided flat sheets of a
development rubbery membrane, referred to as Lab-1 in this
study. According to Evonik MET’s specifications, Lab-1 is tighter
than PM S600. As shown in Fig. 1, the thickness of the top silicon
layer of the Lab-1 membrane is about 100 nm.
Four spiral-wound membrane modules were also provided by
Evonik MET, three of them made of PM S600 membrane and the
other one made of Lab-1 membrane. All modules had the same
feed and permeate spacers (referred to as EMET-F3 and EMET-P1,
respectively). Both the length and width of the permeate channel
( LP and WP, respectively) are about 70 mm shorter than the feed
channel due to the presence of glue lines on the permeate side.
The details about the configuration of these four modules are
summarised in Table 1.