Bifunctionalized organic–inorganic charged nanocomposite membrane for pervaporation dehydration of ethanol

Effect of Nanofillers on Properties and Pervaporation Performance of Nanocomposite Membranes: A Review

In recent years, a well-known membrane-based process called pervaporation (PV), has attracted remarkable attention due to its advantages for selective separation of a wide variety of liquid mixtures. However, some restrictions of polymeric membranes have led to research studies on developing membranes for efficient separation in the PV process. Recent studies have focused on preparation of nanocomposite membranes as an effective method to improve both selectivity and permeability of polymeric membranes. The present study provides a review of PV nanocomposite membranes for various applications. In this review, recent developments in the field of nanocomposite membranes, including the fabrication methods, characterization, and PV performance, are summarized.

Polymeric Nanocomposite Membranes for Next Generation Pervaporation Process: Strategies, Challenges and Future Prospects

Pervaporation (PV) has been considered as one of the most active and promising areas in membrane technologies in separating close boiling or azeotropic liquid mixtures, heat sensitive biomaterials, water or organics from its mixtures that are indispensable constituents for various important chemical and bio-separations. In the PV process, the membrane plays the most pivotal role and is of paramount importance in governing the overall efficiency. This article evaluates and collaborates the current research towards the development of next generation nanomaterials (NMs) and embedded polymeric membranes with regard to its synthesis, fabrication and application strategies, challenges and future prospects.

Biopolymer-based electrolyte membranes from chitosan incorporated with montmorillonite-crosslinked GPTMS for direct methanol fuel cells

A composite membrane was fabricated from biopolymer chitosan and montmorillonite (MMT) filler as an alternative membrane electrolyte for direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) application.

Fabrication of ultrathin membrane via layer-by-layer self-assembly driven by hydrophobic interaction towards high separation performance

A novel and facile layer-by-layer (LbL) self-assembly process driven by hydrophobic interaction and then reinforced by hydrogen bond was developed to prepare ultrathin membranes. Gelatin (GE) and tannic acid (TA) were alternately deposited on polyacrylonitrile (PAN) ultrafiltration membranes to obtain GE/TA membranes. The required number of deposition cycles for acceptable permselectivity of membrane was greatly reduced compared with that of the traditional LbL self-assembly process and could be ascribed to the rapid growth of membrane thickness and the integrity of the innermost gelatin layer. Higher surface hydrophilicity and more appropriate free volume characteristics were obtained for GE/TA multilayer membranes compared with pristine gelatin membrane. Moreover, the GE/TA multilayer membrane exhibited improved stability even at high water content of 30 wt %. The membrane separation experiments with pervaporation dehydration of ethanol aqueous solution as a model system demonstrated the GE/TA multilayer membrane achieved higher water permselectivity than the pristine gelatin membrane. High operation stability was acquired in the long-term membrane separation test.