Water transport and swelling properties of an ultrathin, selective polyamide layer with a hydrophilic polymer coating, i.e., a polymer bilayer, are studied using quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation (QCM-D). Specifically, QCM-D is used to measure the dynamic and equilibrium change in mass in a series of differential sorption experiments to determine the dependence of the apparent diffusion coefficient and equilibrium swelling of the bilayer as a function of the water vapor activity. To determine transport properties specific to the polyamide layer, sorption kinetics of the bilayer was modeled with a bilayer mass transport model. The swelling and water diffusion coefficients are interpreted according to the Painter-Shenoy polymer network swelling model and the solution-diffusion model, respectively.
Keywords: bilayer mass transport; desalination; diffusion; polyamide.