Functional group quantification of polymer nanomembranes with soft x-rays.

ABSTRACT: Polyamide nanomembranes are at the heart of water desalination, a process which plays a critical role in clean water production. Improving their efficiency requires a better understanding of the relationship between chemistry, network structure, and performance but few techniques afford compositional information in ultrathin films (<100 nm). Here, we leverage resonant soft x-ray reflectivity, a measurement that is sensitive to the specific chemical bonds in organic materials, to quantify the functional group concentration in these polyamides. We first employ reference materials to establish quantitative relationships between changes in the optical constants and functional group density, and then use the results to evaluate the functional group concentrations of polyamide nanomembranes. We

SUBMITTER: Sunday DF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5997296 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature