Design and Development of Membrane Processes for Pharmaceutical Separation

Dear Colleagues,

Pharmaceutical separation is a key procedure for producing high-value pharmaceuticals. Separation and purification methods for the production of pharmaceuticals mainly comprise centrifugation, filtration, extraction, evaporation, crystallization, etc. These processes are generally complex and energy intensive and have high investment costs. Additionally, a large amount of wastewater is discharged in the above processes. Therefore, it is important to develop highly efficient, low energy consumption, and environmentally friendly methods for the separation and purification of high-value pharmaceuticals.

Membrane separation, due to its high selectivity and high flux, has potential uses in pharmaceutical separation. For molecular separation, pressure-driven membrane processes such as ultrafiltration and nanofiltration have significant potential applications based on the mechanism of pore size screening. For ion separation, ion exchange membrane-based processes such as electrodialysis and bipolar membrane electrodialysis have significant potential applications based on their selective ion separation. In addition, membrane processes with phase transformations such as membrane distillation have significant potential for water recovery or pharmaceutical concentration. Therefore, the design and development of membrane processes can achieve efficient pharmaceutical separation with low energy consumption and environmentally friendly advantages.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following: ultrafiltration, nanofiltration, electrodialysis (e.g. conventional electrodialysis, bipolar membrane electrodialysis, electrodialysis metathesis, electro-electrodialysis), membrane distillation, membrane module design, and membrane integration processes for pharmaceutical separation. Authors are invited to submit their latest findings, including original papers and reviews.

I/We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Haiyang Yan
Dr. Chunyan Xu
Dr. Tingting Xu
Guest Editors

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• ultrafiltration
• nanofiltration
• ion exchange membrane
• bipolar membrane
• electrodialysis
• membrane distillation
• membrane module design
• membrane integration process
• pharmaceutical separation
• pharmaceutical wastewater treatment