Dear Colleagues,

The science and technology of membranes offer innovative solutions for design, rationalization, and optimization of production cycles, because they show an efficiency superior to that of conventional separation and reaction operations. Till now, membrane separation has been applied mainly in gas phase reactions, like synthesis gas production and dehydrogenations. Only a few papers regard the use of permeable membranes for liquid-phase processes, even if many equilibrium-limited liquid phase mixtures could be treated with the same technology. Anyhow, various membrane technologies are already available for different industrial applications (i.e., agro-food product formulation or chemical production, water desalination or wastewater treatments), like reverse osmosis, gas separation, ultrafiltration, nanofiltration, microfiltration, pervaporation or vapor permeation and dialysis. Specifically, in their simplest form, pervaporation (PV) and vapour permeation (VP) could be considered as clean technologies, which, because of the low temperatures and pressures involved, could efficiently replace conventional energy-intensive separation processes. For example, the ability of PV and VP to handle azeotropic mixtures, avoiding the constraints imposed by liquid-vapor equilibrium, makes these processes extremely attractive and competitive especially if integrated with other separation methods, saving up to 85% of the energy demands required by distillation technology, with a positive decrease in the energy cost of 30–50%. Nowadays, dehydration of organic solvents represents the largest PV industrial application, in which the high water diffusivity through the membrane contributes positively to the selectivity of these processes. It is worth noting the development of processes based on the integration of new technologies and the effort focused on the design of catalytic membrane reactors to improve process performance. In particular, the use of membranes that allow a selective permeation of water from the reaction mixture positively affects the reaction evolution by improving conversion for all reactions thermodynamically or kinetically limited from the presence of water.

This Special Issue is focused on new technological approaches that work towards the optimization of membranes and membrane reactor configuration for specific uses. On this account, by considering the importance of membrane separation and membrane catalytic processes in the field of green chemistry, efficiency, sustainability and environmental safety, it is my pleasure to invite you to submit original research papers or short reviews and communications for the Special Issue “Membrane Development for Pervaporation and Vapor Permeation Processes.”

Dr. Catia Cannilla
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.

• Pervaporation
• Vapor Permeation
• Membrane
• Separation processes
• Membrane reactor
• Industrial chemistry
• Heterogeneous catalysis