3. Determining the hydrophilic/hydrophobic properties of membranes

The hydrophilic nature of a material is a very important parameter, since it conditions solute-membrane and solvent-membrane interactions. In many applications, the efficiency of hydrophilic membranes is superior to that of hydrophobic membranes, the latter being subject to greater clogging when hydrophobic molecules or particles (proteins, colloids, etc.) are present in the filtered fluid . The same applies to surfactants, whose adsorption is more pronounced on hydrophobic materials