Innovative Membrane Technology for Desalination, Wastewater Treatment and Energy Production

Dear Colleagues,

The rapidly growing population and the modern lifestyle have tremendously increased the demand for freshwater and energy. Water stress has been emerged as a great challenge and by 2025, two thirds of the world’s population may face insufficient access to freshwater. In order to fulfil the demand for water, desalination and water reuse have been adopted in many parts of the world. Membrane processes have played a vital role in decreasing the specific energy consumption of desalination and have emerged as strong players in wastewater treatment. State-of-the-art processes applied in desalination and wastewater treatment, however, have approached their performance limits. Furthermore, the traditional processes are driven with high-grade energy and require the disposal of concentrated brine stream. In order to overcome the shortcomings of the traditional membrane processes, new and less-explored membrane processes, including membrane distillation (MD) and forward osmosis (FO), have gained significant interested. MD can be operated by using a source of low-grade energy such as solar, geothermal or waste heat from industrial processes. FO is driven by the concentration gradient created across a semipermeable membrane. Both processes have potential to recover freshwater from high-salinity solutions such as brine.

Similarly to the traditional desalination techniques, the need for sustainable and clean energy is globally recognized. Innovative membrane processes, such as pressure-retarded osmosis (PRO) and reverse electrodialysis (RED), have gained interest for the production of green and sustainable energy. Both processes fundamentally apply the concentration gradient for electricity production and are based on the preferential transport of water (PRO) or ions (RED) through a semipermeable membrane.

The current Special Issue seeks unpublished, original research articles as well as critical reviews on all aspects of MD, FO, PRO and RED in the broad context of desalination, wastewater treatment and energy production. The specific emphasis is on membrane preparation/modification, case studies, process modeling and module design.

Dr. Aamer Ali
Guest Editor

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