Biophysical Journal 5: 867-886 (1965)
© 1965 the Biophysical Society

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The Electrical Conductance of Semipermeable Membranes

I. A Formal Analysis

ABSTRACT

A kinetic analysis of membrane conductance under conditions of stationary flow is presented. The semipermeable membrane is idealized as a homogeneous laminar phase separating ionic solutions on either side. It is assumed, without consideration of the mechanisms involved, that some ion species permeate the membrane while others do not. The flux of a given species is taken to be linearly related to the gradient of its concentration and to the electric field. The resulting flow equations, when combined with Poisson's equation, permit the formulation of the conductance problem in terms of a set of non-linear differential equations. They describe the spatial variation of the electric displacement and contain the ion current densities as parameters. Their integration, subject to appropriate boundary conditions, fixes the values of these parameters and of the corresponding transmembrane potential. The solution of the conductance problem cannot, however, be carried through in analytic form. The numerical analysis of a number of special cases will be presented in subsequent publications.