Basic Principles of Membrane Technology

Membranes playa central role in our daily life, or as indicated by one of my foreign colleagues, Richard Bowen, 'If you are tired of membranes, you are tired of life' . Biological membranes are hardly used in industrial applications, but separations with synthetic membranes have become increasingly important. Today, membrane processes are used in a wide range of applications and their numbers will certainly increase. Therefore, there is a need for well educated and qualified engineers, chemists, scientists and technicians who have been taught the basic principles of membrane technology. However, despite the growing importance of membrane processes, there are only a few universities that include membrane technology in their regular curricula. One of the reasons for this may be the lack of a comprehensive textbook. For me, this was one of the driving forces for writing a textbook on the basic principles of membrane technology which provides a broad view on the various aspects of membrane technology. I realise that membrane technology covers a broad field but nevertheless I have tried to describe the basic principles of the various disciplines. Although the book was written with the student in mind it can also serve as a first introduction for engineers, chemists, and technicians in all kind of industries who wish to learn the basics of membrane technology.

`The text is written in clear, simple language and the occasional syntactical errors do not distort meanings.The book will serve as a useful introduction to the subject.'
Science and Technology

`The book is well structured, very clearly written, and thus easy to understand. With very instructive schematic drawings the author manages to describe complicated procedures and complex interrelations very clearly without extensive mathematical treatment.
All in all, the book is well balanced in its content and provides a complete treatment of membrane technology in sufficient depth to make it very useful for a membrane expert as well as for students and any newcomer to the field who wants a comprehensive and easy-to-understand introduction into membrane science and technology. The book is certainly a very valuable addition to today's membrane literature and a useful tool to everyone active in membrane research and development.' Membrane News 26
' Basic Principles of Membrane Technology by Marcel Mulder is a very welcome addition to the membrane literature. It provides an excellent overview of all aspects of membrane science....and I feel that the book should be strongly considered as a text-book for courses in membrane science and separations. ' Journal of Membrane Science 72 1992