Phenomenological description of selectivity in actively transporting membranes

A phenomenological description of active and passive flows of solute and solvent across a biological membrane can be made explicitly considering the dependence of matter flows upon the rate of metabolic reactions /1/, or introducing a generalized chemical potential including a term accounting for active transport /2/, or making the hypothesis that solute flow can be splitten in two superimposed and thermodynamically couplet active and passive components. With the two latter approaches, by means of a transformation of flows and forces at constant temperature and in absence of electric field, two systems of three interacting flows, sustained by three different forces, can be obtained. The two systems lead to equivalent descriptions of volumetric flow and allow the determination of the reflection coefficient for solute passive transport /3/. The relationship between reflection coefficient and apparent reflection coefficient /4/ is also obtained. 1. A. Katchalsky, P. F. Curran. Nonequilbrium Thermodynamics in Biophysics, Cambridge Mass. (1965); 2. J. M. Diamond. J. Physiol. 161, 503 (1962); 3. F. Celentano, G. Monticelli, G. Torelli. Proc. Ist. Europ. Biophys. Congr. 3, 309 (1971); 4. C. J. Bentzel, M. Davies, W. N. Scott, M. Zatzman, A. K. Solomon. J. Gen. Physiol. 51, 517 (1968)