Ok, i did an experiment on the permeability of different materials and was wondering how those materials work?

Question

ok, so I got

- gladwrap (or clingwrap, wateva)

- sandwich bag

- foil

how do they all work? I found something bout polyethylene for gladwrap but it's too confusing. So what can i say for the info bout how it all works? like do they have pore kinda things, and the biggest pores let through the most amount of steam? which ones have larger pores?more pores? or is there some other thing that explains how steam gets through the materials in the first place?

Answer 1

You are on the right track about the pores, or spaces between the molecules that make up each thing. The material with the largest spaces will let through more and larger molecules.

if you can change your materials, i would, the cling wrap and sandwich bags are both plastic and may be a bit too close together for a good experiment. try something like cheese cloth, whichhas lots of spaces between the fibres and will let a lot of large molecules through