Wetting Phenomena in Membranes Distillation
A special issue of Membranes (ISSN 2077-0375). This special issue belongs to the section "Membrane Processing and Engineering".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (28 February 2023) | Viewed by 2501
Special Issue Editors
Interests: membrane separation; surface modification; advanced materials; electrospun nanofibers; photocatalysis
Interests: membrane distillation; surface interficial chemistry; surfaces and interfaces; advance materials
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
I am happy to invite all of you, together with Dr. Mohd Haiqal Bin Abd Aziz (Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia) and Dr. Ridhwan Adam (Universiti Sains Malaysia), to participate in our Special Issue published in Membranes (IF 4.562). The topic of the Special Issue is “Wetting Phenomena in Membrane Distillation”.
Conventional hydrophobic membranes, such as polyvinylidene fluoride, polypropylene, and polytetrafluoroethylene, fail in the long run in membrane distillation (MD) due to wetting. This is because the Wenzel regime of hydrophobic membranes exhibits low wetting resistance, particularly against amphiphilic molecules and liquids with low surface tension. Amphiphilic molecules can induce wetting in MD via (i) lowering liquid surface tension and (ii) gradual hydrophilization of the hydrophobic pores through adsorption of amphiphilic molecules onto the hydrophobic membrane surface and, subsequently, into membrane pores. On the other hand, liquids with low surface tension encourage wetting by lowering the liquid entry pressure of a pore below the transmembrane hydraulic pressure difference. Additionally, membrane scaling in MD processes is unavoidable under supersaturation conditions. Crystal nucleation and development on the hydrophobic membrane surface are favourable because its surface has a large interfacial contact area. However, membrane scaling promotes wetting, which has a negative impact on flux, permeate quality, and energy efficiency, all of which have been significant barriers to MD's industrial application. Therefore, addressing these issues by employing anti-wetting membranes, either with omniphobic, superhydrophobic, or Janus properties, to enable a stable MD performance against wetting is highly advantageous.
Therefore, this Special Issue intends to collect topics related to wetting phenomena on MD membrane and how to address the issue in enabling a stable MD performance over a long period of time.
In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but not limited to) the following:
- Membrane wetting from the perspective of interfacial interactions;
- Insights on the fundamental mechanism of membrane wetting in MD;
- Effect of operational parameters on membrane wetting in MD;
- Effect of pre-treatment of the feed on membrane wetting in MD;
- State of the art of mitigation strategies on membrane wetting in MD;
- Omniphobic membrane;
- Superhydrophobic membrane;
- Janus membrane.
Dr. Nur Hashimah Alias
Dr. Mohd Ridhwan Bin Adam
Dr. Mohd Haiqal Bin Abd Aziz
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.
Keywords
- membrane distillation
- wetting
- omniphobic
- superhydrophobic
- Janus
- membranes
