• Membrane Journal
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.263-272
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• 2017

There are several different methods to characterize membrane pore size distribution, however, it is yet difficult to accurately measure pore size range of 10-50 nm. In this work, we employed gas-liquid displacement porometer (GLDP) and liquid-liquid displacement porometer (LLDP) to characterize in-house alumina hollow fiber membrane (K-100) and commercial membranes (A-100, A-20) that exhibit pore sizes between 10-100 nm. GLDP method was more suitable for measuring the maximum pore size, and the measured mean pore size of the membranes by LLDP were better correlated with water permeability and solute rejection. It was determined that LLDP is effective for measuring pore sizes between 10-50 nm; however, the method holds intrinsic disadvantages such as low precision and high sensitivity compared to that of GLDP. Nevertheless, it is expected that the recently commercialized LLDP technique can provide useful data that other methods cannot.