In recent years the possibility of using polymeric nanofiltration (NF) membranes for non-aqueous
separations has been explored. There is, however, significant debate concerning fundamental
mechanisms where concepts include solution-diffusion and ‘pore’ flow. This paper presents
nanofiltration and swelling data for polyacrylonitrile (PAN)/poly-dimethylsiloxane (PDMS)
composite membranes with a range of low and higher polarity solvents, some of which contained
solutes in the range 84-612 MW. The influences of parameters such as crossflow rate, applied
pressure, solute size and solvent polarity on filtration performance are presented and measures of
flux and solute rejection are related to membrane swelling. More comprehensive descriptions of
the experimental apparati and results are shown in [1-7]
