Organic-Inorganic Membranes

Abstract

Polymeric membranes are established now in several large scale applications, varying from water desalination, food, chemical and farmaceutical industry, and play a decisive role in the medical field. Inorganic membranes emerged later and are complementing the polymeric materials, being in many cases the only alternative, particularly in processes, which operate at high temperature and in the presence of organic solvents. Although the membrane development had a huge progress in the last decades, the use of pure homopolymers for membrane manufacture leads to a stagnation of perspectives when exploring the membrane application in new fields like energy and nanofiltration in non-aqueous medium.