A survey of pore size, pore size distribution and morphology characterization techniques of filtration membranes is presented. Most of the currently available techniques can only provide 'bulk' pore properties for filtration membranes and cannot provide 'depth' profiles of the pore properties and/or three dimensional pore structure in multilayer filtration membranes. The paper is divided into two parts: in the first part, a brief review of the current methods for characterizing filtration membrane pore properties is given; in the second part, some innovative methods that can give 'depth profile' properties of pore and free volume in filtration membranes from micron-scale to angstrom are introduced. Two of those innovative methods, nano-transmission X-ray microscope (NTXM) and position annihilation lifetime spectroscopic (PALS) techniques will be illustrated thoroughly with examples of microfiltration and nanofiltration membranes.
展开▼
