At present, new low cost separation techniques are needed for using poor resources, treatment of air and water pollution, and cutting down the separation energy.
Much attention has been directed toward the liquid membrane separation process which is one of the recently developed separation techniques. The transfer phenomenon has been observed with supported and unsupported liquid membranes, and especially the mechanism has been described with regard to the outline of passive diffusion, facilitated diffusion and facilitated transport.
The potential applications to the separation of hydrocarbons, the recovering of ions by using carrier-containing membrane and the catalytic liquid membrane reaction have been briefly considered.