Membrane Development for Pervaporation and Vapor Permeation Processes

A special issue of Membranes (ISSN 2077-0375). This special issue belongs to the section "Membrane Processing and Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2021) | Viewed by 4406

Special Issue Editor

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The science and technology of membranes offer innovative solutions for design, rationalization, and optimization of production cycles, because they show an efficiency superior to that of conventional separation and reaction operations. Till now, membrane separation has been applied mainly in gas phase reactions, like synthesis gas production and dehydrogenations. Only a few papers regard the use of permeable membranes for liquid-phase processes, even if many equilibrium-limited liquid phase mixtures could be treated with the same technology. Anyhow, various membrane technologies are already available for different industrial applications (i.e., agro-food product formulation or chemical production, water desalination or wastewater treatments), like reverse osmosis, gas separation, ultrafiltration, nanofiltration, microfiltration, pervaporation or vapor permeation and dialysis. Specifically, in their simplest form, pervaporation (PV) and vapour permeation (VP) could be considered as clean technologies, which, because of the low temperatures and pressures involved, could efficiently replace conventional energy-intensive separation processes. For example, the ability of PV and VP to handle azeotropic mixtures, avoiding the constraints imposed by liquid-vapor equilibrium, makes these processes extremely attractive and competitive especially if integrated with other separation methods, saving up to 85% of the energy demands required by distillation technology, with a positive decrease in the energy cost of 30–50%. Nowadays, dehydration of organic solvents represents the largest PV industrial application, in which the high water diffusivity through the membrane contributes positively to the selectivity of these processes. It is worth noting the development of processes based on the integration of new technologies and the effort focused on the design of catalytic membrane reactors to improve process performance. In particular, the use of membranes that allow a selective permeation of water from the reaction mixture positively affects the reaction evolution by improving conversion for all reactions thermodynamically or kinetically limited from the presence of water.

This Special Issue is focused on new technological approaches that work towards the optimization of membranes and membrane reactor configuration for specific uses. On this account, by considering the importance of membrane separation and membrane catalytic processes in the field of green chemistry, efficiency, sustainability and environmental safety, it is my pleasure to invite you to submit original research papers or short reviews and communications for the Special Issue “Membrane Development for Pervaporation and Vapor Permeation Processes.”

Dr. Catia Cannilla
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • Pervaporation
  • Vapor Permeation
  • Membrane
  • Separation processes
  • Membrane reactor
  • Industrial chemistry
  • Heterogeneous catalysis

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

18 pages, 8784 KiB  
Article
Improving the Structural Parameter of the Membrane Sublayer for Enhanced Forward Osmosis
by Jin Fei Sark, Nora Jullok and Woei Jye Lau
Membranes 2021, 11(6), 448; https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes11060448 - 15 Jun 2021
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 3683
Abstract
The structural (S) parameter of a medium is used to represent the mass transport resistance of an asymmetric membrane. In this study, we aimed to fabricate a membrane sublayer using a novel composition to improve the S parameter for enhanced forward [...] Read more.
The structural (S) parameter of a medium is used to represent the mass transport resistance of an asymmetric membrane. In this study, we aimed to fabricate a membrane sublayer using a novel composition to improve the S parameter for enhanced forward osmosis (FO). Thin film composite (TFC) membranes using polyamide (PA) as an active layer and different polysulfone:polyethersulfone (PSf:PES) supports as sublayers were prepared via the phase inversion technique, followed by interfacial polymerization. The membrane made with a PSf:PES ratio of 2:3 was observed to have the lowest contact angle (CA) with the highest overall porosity. It also had the highest water permeability (A; 3.79 ± 1.06 L m−2 h−1 bar−1) and salt permeability (B; 8.42 ± 2.34 g m−2 h−1), as well as a good NaCl rejection rate of 74%. An increase in porosity at elevated temperatures from 30 to 40 °C decreased Sint from 184 ± 4 to 159 ± 2 μm. At elevated temperatures, significant increases in the water flux from 13.81 to 42.86 L m−2 h−1 and reverse salt flux (RSF) from 12.74 to 460 g m−2 h−1 occur, reducing Seff from 152 ± 26 to 120 ± 14 μm. Sint is a temperature-dependent parameter, whereas Seff can only be reduced in a high-water- permeability membrane at elevated temperatures. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Membrane Development for Pervaporation and Vapor Permeation Processes)
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