Membrane Processes In Industry And Biomedicine

Vanderhoff and E.During about the same period we have advanced experimentally from poorly defined "glue-like" systems to monodisperse colloids, synthesized for the first time in 1955 when J. Bradford announced their polystyrene colloids with extremely narrow particle size distributions.

" Considerable evidence (cf Prosser, 1958) suggests that homeo­ stasis is a general phenomenon which applies to all living things and at all levels of biological complexity. In the world outside the laboratory, life goes on in a chang­ ing rather than in a constant environment and organisms must continually accommodate to changes in temperature, light, humidity, nutrition, etc.

Survival in the face of environmental stress would seem to depend upon the ability of the organism to respond by appropriate biochemical modulations so as to maintain homeostasis. Since studies of the enzymatic process, in vitro, indicate that, in general, biological catalysis can proceed only over limited ranges of temperature, pH, substrate concentration, etc." He further proposed that "if a state remains steady, it does so because any tendency towards change is automatically met by increased effectiveness of the factor or factors which resist the change.

There is at present considerable enthusiasm in membrane research, and the expectations are running high. The Symposium on Membrane Processes in Industry and Biomedicine has been held under the sponsorship of the Division of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry at the 160th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Chicago, Illinois, September 16 and 17, 1970.

There is at present considerable enthusiasm in membrane research, and the expectations are running high. Our lungs and kidneys, skin and intestines are examples of membrane devices for gaseous and liquid separations, exchanges, and concentration.This is partially due to the fact that basic concepts on which membrane processes are based are so deceptively simple.