New Challenges in Membrane Technology for Desalination

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

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2026 | Viewed by 48

Special Issue Editors


E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Materials, Sun Yat-sen University, Shenzhen 518107, China
Interests: desalination; interfacial processes; bionic manufacturing

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Freshwater scarcity, population growth, industrialization, and climate change have made desalination increasingly important for sustainable water supply. Membrane-based desalination offers high efficiency, a modular design, and broad applicability. However, challenges remain, including fouling, scaling, high energy demand, limited durability, insufficient selectivity, and performance decline under complex conditions. Emerging needs, such as hypersaline brine treatment, resource recovery, and decentralized systems, demand new membrane materials, advanced interface engineering, and integrated process design. For this Special Issue, ‘New Challenges in Membrane Technology for Desalination’, we invite high-quality research and review articles on the recent progress and future directions in this field. Topics include innovative membrane materials, surface modification, antifouling and anti-scaling strategies, membrane distillation, forward osmosis, electrodialysis, hybrid processes, brine management, and the water–energy nexus. This Special Issue will provide a platform for researchers to share new concepts, technologies, and practical solutions for advancing efficient and sustainable desalination.

Dr. Junyang Tao
Dr. Shudong Yu
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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

  • membrane desalination
  • surface modification
  • antifouling membranes
  • membrane materials

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Published Papers

This special issue is now open for submission.
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