Membrane engineering for process intensification: a perspective

Abstract

Pushed by the increasing demand for materials, energy and products, chemical engineering today faces a crucial challenge: to support a sustainable industrial growth. One possible solution is process intensification (PI), the innovative design strategy aiming to improve manufacturing and processing by decreasing the equipment size/productivity ratio, energy consumption and waste production using innovative technical solutions. Membrane processes meet the requirements of PI because they have potential to replace conventional energy-intensive techniques, to accomplish the selective and efficient transport of specific components, and to improve the performance of reactive processes. Here, we identify the most interesting aspects of membrane engineering in some strategic industrial sectors. The opportunity to integrate conventional membrane units with innovative systems in order to exploit the potential advantages coming from their synergic applications is also emphasized.  2007 Society of Chemical IndustryKeywords: membrane engineering; integrated membrane systems; process intensification; membrane contactors INTRODUCTIONHow to satisfy the increasing demand for raw materials, energy and products under the constraints imposed by sustainable development is a complex problem, but possible solutions can be found by the rational integration and implementation of new industrial, economical, environmental and social strategies.In this context, future challenges of chemical engineering involve increasing productivity and selectivity via intensification and multi-scale control of processes; designing innovative equipment and implementing more efficient production methods; driving chemical engineering methodology to fit end-use properties required by the customer; and realizing multi-scale applications of computational chemical engineering from molecular scale to complex production scale.

Technical viability and exergy analysis of membrane crystallization: Closing the loop of CO2 sequestration

“…In addition, the main advantages of membrane crystallization have been already demonstrated: 1) it is possible to control the maximum level of supersaturation due to a defined mass transfer through the membrane [29]; 2) the membrane induces heterogeneous nucleation; 3) size, shape and purity of crystals can be controlled; 4) there is a significant reduction of energy consumption compared to conventional crystallization by means of cooling or evaporation [30]; and 5) comparable or slightly higher nucleation rates with respect to batch crystallizers or tubular precipitators have been obtained [24]. Furthermore, the use of membranes has been already considered to satisfy the requirements established by the "process intensification" strategy [31][32][33].…”

Membrane Engineering for Sustainable Development: A Perspective

“…These technologies are energy intensive in nature and generally mark a large footprint. To alleviate these drawbacks of the conventional processes, membrane operations have demonstrated their potential to perform the same operation with far less energy consumption [11]. Relatively less explored membrane operations, such as membrane distillation (MD) and forward osmosis (FO), are able to exploit the sources of low-grade energy to fulfil their operational energy requirements and thus, almost eliminating the motivation to consume high-grade energy [10], [12].…”

Improving ion-exchange membrane properties by the role of nanoparticles

“…The membrane can be used as molecular separation unit, contacting device, diffuser, reactor, catalyst, emulsification unit, hybrid process, etc. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. Ion-exchange membrane (IEM) is a charged membrane which is mainly used as a selective separator for ionic components.…”