Water Vapor Permeability through Porous Polymeric Membranes with Various Hydrophilicity as Synthetic and Natural Barriers

The article is devoted to the analysis of sorption kinetics, permeability, and diffusion of water vapor in porous polymeric membranes of different hydrophilicities and through-porosities. The water transport measurement with a constant gradient of partial pressure allows the authors to obtain reliable characteristics for porous membranes, films, artificial leathers, and fabrics of various chemical natures (synthetic and bio-based) and phase structures. All the kinetic permeability curves were determined and effective diffusion coefficients, as well as their apparent activation energies, were calculated at the stationary and non-stationary stages of the mass transfer. The relationship between the sorption–diffusion characteristics of the polymer barriers and their vapor permeability is traced. Within the framework of a Zolotarev–Dubinin dual dispersive model, an analytical equation is obtained that relates permeability to diffusion coefficients of water vapor in the pore volume, polymer skeleton material using such characteristics as porosity and the solubility coefficient. It is proposed to use this equation to predict the sorption properties for barrier and porous materials of complex architecture specifically in food packaging.