Recent Research in Pervaporation Membranes

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

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 August 2025) | Viewed by 585

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
State Key Laboratory of Materials-Oriented Chemical Engineering, College of Chemical Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing 210009, China
Interests: polymeric membranes; MOF membranes; mixed-matrix membranes; gas separation; pervaporation

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Pervaporation emerged in the 1980s and is now becoming the most promising technology in molecular-scale liquid/liquid separations in biorefinery, petrochemical, pharmaceutical industries, etc., and for the separation of azeotropic mixtures, solutions with similar boiling points, thermally sensitive compounds, and organic–organic mixtures. It is also used for removing dilute organics from aqueous solutions and dehydration of organic compounds due to its intrinsic features such as low energy requirements, cheap separation costs, and good quality product output. Although industrial employment for dehydration has been successful, the insufficient separation ability and poor stability of membrane material have limited its application in organic–organic mixture separation, which is very important in the petrochemical area. Polymeric membranes face the challenge of swelling under the continuing separation process. Mixed-matrix membranes have a compatibility issue between the polymer matrix and fillers. Inorganic membranes need to solve the problem of grain-boundary defects. The issues lead to the gradual reduction of membrane selectivity or flux and the trade-off relationship between selectivity and flux, typically for hydrocarbon isomers, impeding advances in membrane pervaporation.

In this Special Issue, authors are invited to submit original articles and reviews on the subject of robust and highly stable membranes for pervaporation membranes. The contributions may focus on (i) the development of new methods for robust membrane material fabrication; (ii) the design of membrane pores or channels for accurate separation and the corelated characterizations; (iii) the development of mass transfer mechanisms for the newly fabricated membranes; (iv) the proposition of new sustainable solutions to improve the separation accuracy of robust prevacation membranes, etc.

Dr. Rujing Hou
Guest Editor

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 2200 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.

Dr. Rujing Hou
Guest Editor

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 2200 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.

Keywords

  • pervaporation membrane
  • stability
  • separation efficiency

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

18 pages, 4814 KB  
Article
Pore-Discriminative Pervaporation of Xylene Isomers Through In Situ Synthesized MIL-100(In) Membranes
by Jinsuo Yu, Chenyang Jiang, Yanjun Wang, Zemin Li, Yawei Gu, Rujing Hou and Yichang Pan
Membranes 2025, 15(9), 261; https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes15090261 - 29 Aug 2025
Abstract
Efficient xylene isomers’ separation remains a challenge due to their similar kinetic diameter and boiling points, particularly for the separation of the immediate size of meta-xylene (MX). A metal–organic framework (MOF) membrane offers the opportunity to realize the isomers’ separation due to the [...] Read more.
Efficient xylene isomers’ separation remains a challenge due to their similar kinetic diameter and boiling points, particularly for the separation of the immediate size of meta-xylene (MX). A metal–organic framework (MOF) membrane offers the opportunity to realize the isomers’ separation due to the highly tunable pore size and pore environment. Herein, an In-based hierarchic MOF (MIL-100) with a size of 0.77 nm was screened, aiming at the realization for isomer separation through pore size matching. Meanwhile, the polar microenvironment in the MOF channel built through trimesic acid ligands contributes to the higher affinity to the MX relative to the PX. With the equimolar feed mixture of MX/PX, the optimal membrane demonstrated a total flux of 7.6 kg·m−2·h−1 and an MX/PX separation factor of 2.54 at room temperature through pervaporation. Such performance highly indicates the possibility for efficient liquid xylene separation in future. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Research in Pervaporation Membranes)
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