Estimation of Water Desorption in Drying of Membrane Structure System

Abstract

In general, ceramic membranes consist of top layer possess structure a hygroscopic zone which acts as a separator while the following bottom layers form a porous nonhygroscopic zone which provides the permeation paths and acting as supporting structures. Thus, the combination of these two different multilayer systems will exhibit different water desorption behavior especially in ceramic membrane preparation. Experimentally, this water characteristic is defined through water retention curve (WRC). Since there is no detailed study on the fitting parameters that associated with WRC on membrane structure has yet been reported, therefore, this paper investigates the effects of various parameters used in WRC equation that represent material properties of the membrane structure using mathematical model. The results showed that hygroscopic material has higher α and n value with lower m value compared with nonhygroscopic material. Hence, understanding the variation of the fitting parameters in the WRC equation is essential for the configuration of WRC slope associated with the material properties especially during drying process of membrane.