Oil-in-water (o/w) emulsions of different droplet size were filtered on membranes of various pore sizes to investigate the growth and behaviour of o/w filter cakes. The cake desorptivity S and the filter membrane resistance R were measured at various filtration pressures P. The variation of S with P shows that filter cake oil droplets of radius a are effectively rigid for P <> gamma/a, where gamma is the oil-water interfacial tension. For the largest P, when S became P-independent, the filter cake remained water-permeable as expected from theory. (c) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.