Short review on liquid membrane technology and their applications in biochemical engineering

As a branch of membrane separation technology, liquid membrane has attracted great attention and expanded investigations in biological chemical engineering, with life and health concern in ecosystems. Composed of membrane solvent and mobile carrier, liquid membrane was acquired of function, performing the facilitated mass transfer across the diffusive solvent, so as for the separation and delivery achievement with efficacy. In this review, two types of liquid membrane are mainly focused, respectively on supported liquid membrane (SLM) of membrane solvent supporter in necessity, and on emulsion liquid membrane (ELM) of the required interfacial stabilizers and homogenization. Accordingly, the transfer mechanism, compositions, structure and features of SLM and ELM are introduced respectively. Moreover, the current investigations of liquid membrane have been discussed, focusing on the improvements of efficacy and stability in separation & detection, encapsulation and delivery, so as to scale up the favorable and efficient application with bio-life concern. Prospectively, this review could provide comprehensive insight into the bio-applications of liquid membrane, and guidelines for the further investigations on the efficacy and long-term applicable stability, in order to realize the industrialization.