Van der Waals force
The morphology of a membrane is usually established by microscopy. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is one method used to characterise the surface roughness of a membrane by passing a small sharp tip (&lt;100 Ă) across the surface of a membrane and measuring the resulting Van der Waals force between the atoms in the end of the tip and the surface. This is useful as a direct correlation between surface roughness and colloidal fouling has been developed. Correlations also exist between fouling and other morphology parameters, such as hydrophobe, showing that the more hydrophobic a membrane is, the less prone to fouling it is. See membrane fouling for more information.