AbstractAmong the important efforts that have been made for the removal of trace organic molecules, sorption by micelles and subsequent membrane filtration is a promising method which, however, still suffers from a number of disadvantages such as low efficiency and high energy consumption. In this article, we present the results of the sorption of phenol (as an important trace organic pollutant in industrial wastewater) to dioctadecyl dimethyl ammonium chloride (DODAC) liposomes, as well as the filtration properties of the resulting dispersion. Whereas the sorption of phenol by a 0.5 wt % DODAC dispersion at neutral pH and ambient temperature was only 26–35 %, it increased to above 95 % at pH 11. Applying an electric field during the filtration process considerably improved both the filtrate flow rate and the retention. An electric field of 5 V/cm increased the filtrate flow rate at 200 kPa 30‐fold.