Nanofiber Membranes: Materials and Applications

A special issue of Membranes (ISSN 2077-0375).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2016)

Special Issue Editor

Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, University of Connecticut, 191 Auditorium Road, Unit 3222, Storrs, CT 06269-3222, USA
Interests: membrane separations for sustainable water and energy production; forward osmosis and pressure retarded osmosis; electrospun nanofibers for water treatment and reuse; thin film composite membrane design and fabrication; hollow fiber thin film composite membranes, polymeric membrane characterization; activated carbon nanofiber fabrics for adsorption and electrodes; porous materials characterization

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Nanofiber membranes have emerged as a novel material, with a number of applications across the membrane separations discipline. Already commercialized for some air filtration applications, nanofiber materials have recently been considered for liquid separations, especially for water treatment, due to their small and regular pore size, as well as low hydraulic resistance derived from an intrinsically high porosity. Moreover, the relatively high surface areas of these materials enable their use in adsorptive applications.

The exciting nature of this emergent membrane material have prompted Membranes to dedicate a Special Issue to the topic of “Nanofiber Membranes: Materials and Applications”. We invite you to submit your novel work on nanofiber materials for use in any membrane application. Topics may include, but are not limited to, filtration membranes, adsorptive membranes, composites materials (thin film composite, nanocomposite), energy application (battery separators, ion exchange membranes), self-assembled materials, fabrication methods (electrospinning, force spinning, co-spinning, core-shell spinning, hybrid spinning processes), inorganic nanofibers, reactive membranes, nanofiber characterization, and transport modeling through nanofiber membranes. 

If you have a question about whether or not your work would be suitable for this Special Issue, I encourage you to contact me by email. We look forward to receiving your submissions.

Dr. Jeffrey McCutcheon
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 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

  • nanofiber
  • nonwoven
  • electrospinning
  • filtration
  • composite

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

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Article
Nanofiber Ion-Exchange Membranes for the Rapid Uptake and Recovery of Heavy Metals from Water
by Nithinart Chitpong and Scott M. Husson
Membranes 2016, 6(4), 59; https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes6040059 - 20 Dec 2016
Cited by 25 | Viewed by 5714
Abstract
An evaluation of the performance of polyelectrolyte-modified nanofiber membranes was undertaken to determine their efficacy in the rapid uptake and recovery of heavy metals from impaired waters. The membranes were prepared by grafting poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) and poly(itaconic acid) (PIA) to cellulose nanofiber [...] Read more.
An evaluation of the performance of polyelectrolyte-modified nanofiber membranes was undertaken to determine their efficacy in the rapid uptake and recovery of heavy metals from impaired waters. The membranes were prepared by grafting poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) and poly(itaconic acid) (PIA) to cellulose nanofiber mats. Performance measurements quantified the dynamic ion-exchange capacity for cadmium (Cd), productivity, and recovery of Cd(II) from the membranes by regeneration. The dynamic binding capacities of Cd(II) on both types of nanofiber membrane were independent of the linear flow velocity, with a residence time of as low as 2 s. Analysis of breakthrough curves indicated that the mass flow rate increased rapidly at constant applied pressure after membranes approached equilibrium load capacity for Cd(II), apparently due to a collapse of the polymer chains on the membrane surface, leading to an increased porosity. This mechanism is supported by hydrodynamic radius (Rh) measurements for PAA and PIA obtained from dynamic light scattering, which show that Rh values decrease upon Cd(II) binding. Volumetric productivity was high for the nanofiber membranes, and reached 0.55 mg Cd/g/min. The use of ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid as regeneration reagent was effective in fully recovering Cd(II) from the membranes. Ion-exchange capacities were constant over five cycles of binding-regeneration. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nanofiber Membranes: Materials and Applications)
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