Determination of permeabilities for two gases from recording the partial pressure of one gas.

When a flexible diffusion layer separates two closed gas chambers containing different mixtures of several gases, the different permeabilities of the layer for these gases lead to differences in the total gas pressures of the two chambers resulting in bulging of the layer and consequent changes in the chamber volumes. Application of the gas laws to binary gas mixtures provides two equations relating the partial pressure changes of one gas in any of the two chambers to the partial pressure difference between the two chambers across the layer. This permits the calculation of the two unknown factors, permeability (or Krogh's diffusion coefficient) of the layer for the measured gas and the permeability ratio of the two gases. Thus the permeabilities of both gases can be determined from recording the partial pressure of one of the gases only. We filled the gas chambers with different mixtures of oxygen and a second gas (nitrogen or carbon dioxide) at atmospheric pressure, closed the chambers, and measured the diffusion of the gases across thin (12-500 microns) layers of various materials by recording the oxygen partial pressure in both chambers with polarographic oxygen electrodes. Permeabilities of these layers for oxygen and the other gas were determined for plastic layers (MEM213, Silastic, Teflon), as well as water and methemoglobin solutions either in a fluid layer or soaked in Millipore filters. The data agreed well with those obtained from other studies in most cases.