Separation is an important enabling unit operation in many industrial and household applications. The invention of polymeric hollow fibre asymmetric membranes (1960) caused a strong growth since it allows for continuous processing under mild conditions and low energy consumption.

The invention of ceramic membranes and their introduction to non-nuclear applications (1980) caused a further growth.
Ceramic membranes are durable products and offer strongly improved thermal, chemical and mechanical stability as compared to polymers. The market share of inorganic membranes is yet less than 10%. Major drawbacks being mentioned are lack of compactness and high initial investment costs.

A further major breakthrough occurs with the availability of compact, low cost, hollow fibre ceramic membrane modules (2001) with very high membrane area to volume ratio.
These products are being manufactured much more cost effectively than conventional ceramic membranes. In combination with high process fluxes the initial investment costs can be reduced significantly.