Figure 1 Schematic representation of carrier-mediated transport (facil- itated diffusion) through a liquid membrane where D; and c; denote the diffusion coefficient and concentration of species j (j = S, L and LS), respectively; cr is the total carrier concentration; cs(0) is the interfacial concentration of solute; and dis the membrane thickness. Here, we can assume that Ds = Dr, = Drs = D. We have chosen that cs(0) = cr =a. Equations 2-4 are transformed to a dimensionless state by introducing the following parameters: