The separation of mixtures of substances is a fundamental technical and biological process. Nature uses a variety of membranes such as vessel walls, cell walls or membrane proteins to separate substances. In industrial and technical applications, however, the classical separation processes still dominate: Distillation/rectification, extraction, crystallisation or adsorption or absorption. Compared to these processes, membrane separation requires only a fraction of the energy. With their material properties adapted to the respective separation task, membranes are an ideal solution for many applications.

Investments in membrane development are worthwhile. This is what the DGMT Deutsche Gesellschaft für Membrantechnik e.V., the VDI Verein Deutscher Ingenieure e.V. and the ProcessNet-Fachgruppe Membrantechnik der DECHEMA Gesellschaft für Chemische Technik und Biotechnologie e.V. advocate in their current position paper „Membranen für die Trenntechnik - Anwendungspotenziale für Deutschland“.

The Leibniz Institute of Surface Engineering (IOM) is a member of the DGMT Deutsche Gesellschaft für Membrantechnik e.V. and part of the network. In particular, the research area "Surfaces of porous membrane filters" is active in membrane research in the field of "Research and development of polymer membranes".