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FilmPCheadline bar  The full version of the programcan be  downloaded from the software download area.**Year: 2011Version: 3.0**Abstract:
Plastic tarps currently used during soil fumigation to control emissions have been shown to be permeable to fumigant vapors, resulting in appreciable losses to the atmosphere. New low-permeability films are being developed to reduce fumigant emissions and increase efficacy.
A rapid, reliable, and sensitive method is required to measure the permeability of various films that may be used in new management practices. This manuscript presents an approach for estimating the mass transfer coefficient (h) of fumigant compounds across agricultural films. The h is a measure of the resistance to diffusion which, unlike other measures of permeability, is a property of the film-chemical combination and independent of the concentration gradient across the film.
This method uses static sealed cells; fumigant vapor is spiked to one side of the film and the concentrations on both sides of the film are monitored until equilibrium. An analytical model is fitted to the data to obtain h. This model relies on a mass balance approach and includes sorption to and diffusion across the film membrane. The method was tested using two polyethylene films and a very low-permeability film and showed that the method produces a sensitive and reproducible measure of film permeability.References:Papiernik, S.K., J. Gan, J.A. Knuteson and S.R. Yates. 1999. Sorption of Fumigants by Agricultural Films. Env. Sci. Technol. 33:1213-1217.
Papiernik, S.K., S.R. Yates and J. Gan. 2001. An approach for estimating the permeability of agricultural films. Environ. Sci. Tech. 35(6):1240-1246.
Papiernik, S.K., F.F. Ernst and S.R. Yates. 2002. An apparatus for measuring the gas permeability of films. J. of Environ. Quality. 31:358-361.
Papiernik, S.K. and S.R. Yates. 2002. Effect of environmental conditions on the permeability of high density polyethylene film to fumigant vapors. Environ. Sci. & Tech. 36:1833-1838.
Supporting information
Papiernik, S.K., S.R. Yates and D.O. Chellemi. 2010. A standardized approach for estimating the permeability of plastic films to soil fumigants under various field and environmental conditions. J. Environ. Quality.
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