Accessibility and Ion Exchange Stoichiometry of Ionized Carboxylic Groups in the Active Layer of FT30 Reverse Osmosis Membrane

We have experimentally determined the concentration of Ball that associates with the accessible ionized R-COO- groups in the polyamide active layer of the FT30 reverse osmosis membrane in the pH range 3.42-10.30. Ba2+ concentrations in the active layer ([Ba2+]) were measured using the ion-probing/Rutherford backscattering spectrometry procedure reported in our previous work. We found that at all but the lowest experimental pH 3.42, [Ba2+] was lower than the corresponding total concentrations of R-COO- groups; their difference was consistent with steric and charge effects determining the accessibility and association, respectively, of Ba2+ to R-COO- groups. Accordingly, we propose two descriptors, the accessibility ratio (AR) and the neutralization number (NN), to account for the observed difference. AR, the fraction of R-COO- groups accessible to Ba2+ ions, and NN, the average number of R-COO- groups neutralized per Ba2+ ion, were determined experimentally performing Ag+-Ba2+ ion-exchange tests. The resulting AR = 0.40 indicated that on average only 40% of ionizable carboxylic groups were accessible to Ba2+. [Ba2+] values calculated using R-COO- concentrations and the AR and NN concepts were in agreement with experimental [Ba2+] results.