Membrane processes for a sustainable industrial growth

Abstract

This review gives an overview of the key results in various fields of membrane technology with special emphasis to their exploitation in sustainable industrial applications. Considerable progress has been made in short time in a number of important application areas: membrane technology and engineering for water treatment, gas separation, purification and recovery in petrochemical, chemical, pharmaceutical, electronic industry, regenerative medicine etc. The basic properties of membrane operations (generally a-thermal; simple in concept and operation; modular and easy to scale-up; with a potential for more rational utilization of raw materials and recovery and reuse; compatible to a retrofit strategy) are at the basis of their integration into industrial practice. © 2013 The Royal Society of Chemistry.