Biomimetic approaches to developing membranes for separations have seen a renevved interest in recent years. Biomimetic membranes incorporate biological elements or borrow concepts, ideas or inspiration from biological systems. Such membranes can Lake advantage of the strategies evolved by nature over billions of years for improving transport efficiency and specificity. This review covers biological paradigms that are relevant to membranes for separations and then presents an overview of strategies that are inspired by these paradigms. It also presents both fundamental and practical challenges to implementation of these strategies at application relevant scales. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.