Advanced Membrane Materials for Gas Separation and Water Treatment

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

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (25 June 2023) | Viewed by 3938

Special Issue Editors

1. Robinson Research Institute, Faculty of Engineering, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand
2. The MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand
Interests: membrane separation process; porous materials; hydrogen production and applications

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Guest Editor
Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, the University of Auckland, Auckland 1010, New Zealand
Interests: membrane process applications; membrane surface modification; membrane fouling
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Guest Editor
State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150090, China
Interests: inorganic membrane; waste water treatment

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Guest Editor
School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Shandong University, Shandong, China
Interests: environmental functional materials; porous polymer applications
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In the context of increasing global concerns regarding environmental sustainability, membrane-based technology has become a favorite option for gas separation and water treatment processes. The membrane industry, however, is currently constrained by the inherent limitations of the conventional membrane materials. Advances and innovations in membrane materials could lead to next-generation membrane technologies with high energy efficiency and low carbon footprint. The purpose of this Special Issue is to present the latest developments on membrane materials for gas separation and water treatment processes.

We are seeking high-quality papers for this Special Issue on “Advanced Membrane Materials for Gas Separation and Water Treatment”. Both original research articles and review papers are welcomed. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • Inorganic membranes (ceramic, metallic, carbon, metal-organic framework, and zeolite membranes);
  • Polymeric membranes;
  • Mixed-matrix membranes;
  • Bio-based membranes;
  • Stimuli and smart responsive membranes.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Ben Yin
Dr. Filicia Wicaksana
Dr. Dongwei Lv
Prof. Dr. Xinbo Wang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Membranes is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 3179 KiB  
Article
Incorporation of Functionalized Halloysite Nanotubes (HNTs) into Thin-Film Nanocomposite (TFN) Nanofiltration Membranes for Water Softening
by Amirsajad Atashgar, Daryoush Emadzadeh, Somaye Akbari and Boguslaw Kruczek
Membranes 2023, 13(2), 245; https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes13020245 - 18 Feb 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1535
Abstract
Incorporating nanoparticles (NPs) into the selective layer of thin-film composite (TFC) membranes is a common approach to improve the performance of the resulting thin-film nanocomposite (TFN) membranes. The main challenge in this approach is the leaching out of NPs during membrane operation. Halloysite [...] Read more.
Incorporating nanoparticles (NPs) into the selective layer of thin-film composite (TFC) membranes is a common approach to improve the performance of the resulting thin-film nanocomposite (TFN) membranes. The main challenge in this approach is the leaching out of NPs during membrane operation. Halloysite nanotubes (HNTs) modified with the first generation of poly(amidoamine) (PAMAM) dendrimers (G1) have shown excellent stability in the PA layer of TFN reverse-osmosis (RO) membranes. This study explores, for the first time, using these NPs to improve the properties of TFN nanofiltration (NF) membranes. Membrane performance was evaluated in a cross-flow nanofiltration (NF) system using 3000 ppm aqueous solutions of MgCl2, Na2SO4 and NaCl, respectively, as feed at 10 bar and ambient temperature. All membranes showed high rejection of Na2SO4 (around 97–98%) and low NaCl rejection, with the corresponding water fluxes greater than 100 L m−2 h−1. The rejection of MgCl2 (ranging from 82 to 90%) was less than that for Na2SO4. However, our values are much greater than those reported in the literature for other TFN membranes. The remarkable rejection of MgCl2 is attributed to positively charged HNT-G1 nanoparticles incorporated in the selective polyamide (PA) layer of the TFN membranes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Membrane Materials for Gas Separation and Water Treatment)
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15 pages, 3156 KiB  
Article
Ionic Liquid-Mediated Interfacial Polymerization for Fabrication of Reverse Osmosis Membranes
by Nisha Verma, Lexin Chen, Qinyi Fu, Skyler Wu and Benjamin S. Hsiao
Membranes 2022, 12(11), 1081; https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes12111081 - 31 Oct 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1710
Abstract
This study revealed the effects of incorporating ionic liquid (IL) molecules: 1-ethyl, 1-butyl, and 1-octyl-3-methyl-imidazolium chlorides with different alkyl chain lengths, in interfacial polymerization (IP) on the structure and property (i.e., permeate-flux and salt rejection ratio) relationships of resulting RO membranes. The IL [...] Read more.
This study revealed the effects of incorporating ionic liquid (IL) molecules: 1-ethyl, 1-butyl, and 1-octyl-3-methyl-imidazolium chlorides with different alkyl chain lengths, in interfacial polymerization (IP) on the structure and property (i.e., permeate-flux and salt rejection ratio) relationships of resulting RO membranes. The IL additive was added in the aqueous meta-phenylene diamine (MPD; 0.1% w/v) phase, which was subsequently reacted with trimesoyl chloride (TMC; 0.004% w/v) in the hexane phase to produce polyamide (PA) barrier layer. The structure of resulting free-standing PA thin films was characterized by grazing incidence wide-angle X-rays scattering (GIWAXS), which results were correlated with the performance of thin-film composite RO membranes having PA barrier layers prepared under the same IP conditions. Additionally, the membrane surface properties were characterized by zeta potential and water contact angle measurements. It was found that the membrane prepared by the longer chain IL molecule generally showed lower salt rejection ratio and higher permeation flux, possibly due to the inclusion of IL molecules in the PA scaffold. This hypothesis was supported by the GIWAXS results, where a self-assembled surfactant-like structure formed by IL with the longest aliphatic chain length was detected. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Membrane Materials for Gas Separation and Water Treatment)
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