Challenges in commercialization of sustainable membranes with FNMs (original) (raw)

Membranes with Functionalized Nanomaterials

Separation processes in industries play an important role to improve the quality of products. Gas and liquid separation processes can be performed by several techniques including distillation, chemical absorption, physical or chemical adsorption, and membrane separation process. In recent years, membrane has gained an increased interest for application in industries due to its simplicity and versatility. Membrane is a permselective barrier between feed and permeate sides, which can retain certain species and pass through other species [1-3]. The term membrane can be trailed back to the 18th century when Abbe Nolet first proposed the term 'osmosis' to define the penetration of water through a diaphragm [1]. Since that discovery, the experiments using membrane have been conducted, however, industrial application of membrane did not occur until the early 1960s when Loeb and Sourirajan discovered a technique to synthesize defect-free, high throughput, and anisotropic reverse osmosis membranes [1 ,4]. Following the discovery, membrane separation techniques have been applied for water and gas separation processes. The driving force for the separation process could be the difference of pressure (L1P), temperature (L1 T), concentration (L1C), or electrical potential (L1E) between two phases. In general, membrane separation processes can be classified according to their driving forces and the types of phases on either side of membranes as shown in Table 10 .1. Membrane separation process is receiving a growing interest for application in separation processes on an industrial scale due to its advantages compared to conventional techniques, such as distillation, evaporation, crystallization, chemical absorption, physical adsorption, and other physical separation techniques. Membrane is considered a clean technique because membrane does not need chemicals as in absorption and adsorption. Membrane is also considered as energy saver Membranes with Functionalized N anomaterials