Sidney Loeb (1917–2008) was an American-Israeli chemical engineer. Loeb made reverse osmosis (RO) practical by developing, together with Srinivasa Sourirajan, semi-permeable anisotropic membranes. The invention of the ''practical reverse osmosis membrane '' revolutionized water desalination. Loeb invented the power generating process ''pressure retarded osmosis'' (PRO)--making accessible a rich previously unknown source of green energy, and a method of producing power by a reverse electrodialysis (RED) heat engine, among other inventions in related fields. The production of energy by PRO and RED, among others, is sometimes called "osmotic power."
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