Pervaporation is known as an excellent method for the purification of contaminated water, the extraction of aroma compounds, etc., and has been widely studied. The prediction of permeation is important for treatment, extraction, and quantitative analysis. To predict permeation, a solution-diffusion mechanism is proposed. The octanol-water partition coefficient (Pow) has been generally used in expressing hydrophobicity. The hydrophobicity, Pow, is closely related to the solubility of organic compounds. Also, the molecular volume is closely related to the diffusion of organic compounds. In this study, we improved polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) membranes by plasma grafting of fluoroalkyl methacrylates (FALMA) to enhance the affinity of PDMS to volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Furthermore, we investigated the pervaporation through the plasma-grafted PDMS membrane and the PDMS membrane and the solution-diffusion mechanism of various VOCs. The permselectivity of tetrachloroethylene (PCE) and toluene determined by the sorption and the diffusion characteristics permeating in the membrane was high. Because the molecular volume of the VOCs is wgreated than that of water and the permeates quickly penetrate in rubbery membranes like PDMS, permselectivity was not affected by the diffussivity. Solubility significantly affected the permselectibity during pervaporation through a hydrophobic rubbery membrane. (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.