The withstanding properties of inorganic membranes provide a set of tools for solving many of the problems that the society is facing, from environmental to energy problems and from water quality to more competitive industries. Such a wide variety of issues requires a fundamental approach, together with the precise description of applications provided by those researchers that have been close to the industrial applications. The contents of this book expand the lectures given in a Summer School of the European Membrane Society. They combine an easily accessible description of the...