Abstract
A hollow fiber device (HF device) has been designed, constructed and developed which utilizes the water transport property of Nafion®Registered trademark of E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company for its perfluorinated membranes. perfluorinated membrane to separate water vapor from organic vapors. The device was designed for industrial hygiene applications to reduce or change humidity in an airstream prior to collection of organics on an adsorbent tube. Moisture affects collection of organics by causing early breakthrough of compounds collected on hygroscopic adsorbents and by reacting with hydrolyzable compounds during collection. This device has the potential for eliminating some of these problems. The device is capable of reducing humidity in an air sample from 94% to <20% RH (at 74°F) for a period of at least 9 hours. Many organic vapors (including aliphatic, aromatic and chlorinated hydrocarbons) and inorganic vapors do not permeate Nafion and can be recovered on an adsorbent tube after passing through the hollow fiber device. Some polar organics, such as phenol, showed significant permeation losses after passing through the HF device.