Membrane Technologies for Desalination and Wastewater Treatment

A special issue of Processes (ISSN 2227-9717). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental and Green Processes".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 February 2026 | Viewed by 66

Special Issue Editor

Singapore Membrane Technology Centre, Nanyang Environment and Water Research Institute, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 637141, Singapore
Interests: membrane technology; nanofiltration; 2D materials; nanocomposite membrane; desalination; hollow fiber membrane

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

With growing global demand for clean water and sustainable resource management, membrane technologies have emerged as vital tools in desalination and wastewater treatment. Advanced membrane systems—including nanofiltration, reverse osmosis, ultrafiltration, microfiltration, forward osmosis, and membrane bioreactors—offer energy-efficient and scalable solutions for removing salts, heavy metals, organic micropollutants, and pathogens from challenging water matrices.

This Special Issue on “Membrane Technologies for Desalination and Wastewater Treatment” aims to highlight recent advances in new membrane materials, separation mechanisms, and process optimization for desalination and water treatment. Topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Advanced porous polymer membranes;
  • Thin-film nanocomposite membranes and performance application;
  • Mixed matrix membranes and performance applications;
  • Two-dimensional membrane vacuum-assisted assembly;
  • Mechanistic insights into membrane filtration performance;
  • Membranes for biogas upgrading in wastewater or wastewater sludge anaerobic treatment.

Dr. Qiang Xue
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • membrane technologies
  • desalination
  • wastewater treatment
  • thin-film nanocomposites
  • mixed matrix membranes
  • 2D membranes

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

26 pages, 2652 KiB  
Article
Predictive Framework for Membrane Fouling in Full-Scale Membrane Bioreactors (MBRs): Integrating AI-Driven Feature Engineering and Explainable AI (XAI)
by Jie Liang, Sangyoup Lee, Xianghao Ren, Yingjie Guo, Jeonghyun Park, Sung-Gwan Park, Ji-Yeon Kim and Moon-Hyun Hwang
Processes 2025, 13(8), 2352; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr13082352 - 24 Jul 2025
Abstract
Membrane fouling remains a major challenge in full-scale membrane bioreactor (MBR) systems, reducing operational efficiency and increasing maintenance needs. This study introduces a predictive and analytic framework for membrane fouling by integrating artificial intelligence (AI)-driven feature engineering and explainable AI (XAI) using real-world [...] Read more.
Membrane fouling remains a major challenge in full-scale membrane bioreactor (MBR) systems, reducing operational efficiency and increasing maintenance needs. This study introduces a predictive and analytic framework for membrane fouling by integrating artificial intelligence (AI)-driven feature engineering and explainable AI (XAI) using real-world data from an MBR treating food processing wastewater. The framework refines the target parameter to specific flux (flux/transmembrane pressure (TMP)), incorporates chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiency to reflect biological performance, and applies a moving average function to capture temporal fouling dynamics. Among tested models, CatBoost achieved the highest predictive accuracy (R2 = 0.8374), outperforming traditional statistical and other machine learning models. XAI analysis identified the food-to-microorganism (F/M) ratio and mixed liquor suspended solids (MLSSs) as the most influential variables affecting fouling. This robust and interpretable approach enables proactive fouling prediction and supports informed decision making in practical MBR operations, even with limited data. The methodology establishes a foundation for future integration with real-time monitoring and adaptive control, contributing to more sustainable and efficient membrane-based wastewater treatment operations. However, this study is based on data from a single full-scale MBR treating food processing wastewater and lacks severe fouling or cleaning events, so further validation with diverse datasets is needed to confirm broader applicability. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Membrane Technologies for Desalination and Wastewater Treatment)
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