The huge industrial potential of organophilic nanofiltration is widely discussed and accepted. The benefits of such a process range from the gentle recovery of valuable substances, the energy-optimised purification of solvent streams and the separation of undesirable by-products to the circularity of processes.

Scientific papers have been and are being published on new membrane materials. A significant number of these membranes show excellent performance. So why are so few membranes industrially applied? What are the challenges of implementing membrane processes in large industrial applications? Some aspects of the challenges of moving from the lab to large-scale industrial applications will be highlighted and discussed in the presentation.