Chapter one - Introduction to electrochemical membrane technology: current status and recent developments

Abstract

When billions of people in the world still lack access to clean water, the fact remains that meanwhile more and more pollutants, emerging and old, have been found to contaminate the various water resources. The pressing issue of water scarcity and its pollution urges us to find more effective and affordable techniques to ensure that an efficient water and wastewater treatment system is in place. Electrochemical membrane technology, which integrates the electrochemistry and membrane processes, is thereby developed to meet the increasing requirements of water and wastewater treatment systems and has attracted extensive attention of the research community. This chapter aims to present an overview of the state-of-the-art electrochemical membrane technologies, mainly the ion exchange membrane- and conductive membrane-based electrochemical membrane technologies. Firstly, definitions, classifications, working principles of each technology, and the preparation methods of the employed membranes are introduced. Afterwards, the historical development of each technology as well as their primary applications in water and wastewater treatment are presented, while their advantages and disadvantages are also discussed. Finally, based on the recent advances, the challenges of and the perspectives to the future development of electrochemical membrane technologies are presented.