Osmosis

Abstract

It has virtually become a truism that osmosis, and the inseparable array of related processes comprising ultrafiltration, diffusion, anomalous osmosis, etc., has found its final and lasting exposition to which anything can only be added by way of a few finishing touches. This view, as I shall attempt to show, is quite wrong, if for no other reason than that several of the different approaches to the problem are not complementary. We want two things: to gain an insight into the mechanisms operative in porous systems, and to derive equations which predict the flow rates from a minimal set of properties – if we can decide what these are.