New technologies for iodine separation and recovery are required to decrease environmental pollution and improve iodine production. Separation and recovery of iodine (I 2 ) in aqueous solution was achieved using permeation and chemical desorption (PCD) with a silicone rubber membrane (SRM). The SRM separated an aqueous feed solution from an alkaline or reducing recovery solution such as a mixture of sodium hydrate and sodium sulfate. The I 2 crossed the membrane from the aqueous feed solution into the recovery solution, where it was converted into iodide (I -). Iodide in the recovery solution did not return to the feed solution across the SRM. An acidic feed solution promoted a high recovery of iodine. The permeation process followed first-order kinetics, allowing the overall mass-transfer coefficient and parameters related to permeation of I 2 through the SRM to be determined. Permeability of I 2 increased with temperature, and the apparent activation energy (E a ) for penetration of I 2 through the SRM was determined. The value of E a for I 2 was of the same order of magnitude as those for phenols and anilines. The large membrane/aqueous distribution coefficient for I 2 indicated that I 2 had a high affinity toward the SRM. These results indicate that the PCD method is effective and powerful for separation and recovery of iodine from aqueous solutions.