An extensive study of thermodynamics and kinetics of non-solvent induced phase separation was carried out for poly(vinylidene fluoride)/solvent/water system for four different solvents. Literature available on semicrystalline polymers was mostly based on experimental cloud points, obtained to a narrow range of polymer concentration (<10wt%), much less than the working range for membrane preparation (20-25wt%). Aim of this work was to model the thermodynamic phase diagram using extended Flory-Huggins theory which was used as a tool, along with the kinetic data to obtain tailor-made membranes with desired morphology and properties. Interaction parameters involving solvent, nonsolvent, and polymer played an important role to tune the porosity of the membrane. Thermodynamic calculation showed solvent N,N-dimethyl acetamide resulted in the most porous membrane (permeability 5.4x10(-11)mPa(-1)s(-1)) followed by N,N-dimethyl formamide (permeability 4.2x10(-11)mPa(-1)s(-1)), N-methyl pyrrolidone (permeability 3.8x10(-11)mPa(-1)s(-1)), and acetone (impermeable to water even at 1380 kPa), which was the densest one. Prepared membranes were characterized in terms of surface morphology, molecular weight cut-off, tensile strength, pore volume distribution, crystallinity, and surface roughness, which were correlated to inferences based on thermodynamic and kinetic calculations. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 58:1062-1073, 2018. (c) 2017 Society of Plastics Engineers