Chapter three - Electrochemical membrane materials and modules

Abstract

Electrochemical membrane technology (EMT) has attracted extensive research interest in water treatment, wastewater treatment, desalination, and energy generation due to its ease of operation, small footprint, and high energy efficiency. As the most important component, electrochemical membrane materials play a key role in the EMT. They can be selective barriers in the membrane separation process and simultaneously act as electrodes in the electrochemical process. They are also used as ion exchange membranes to partially or totally preclude the passage of ions with the same charge. In this chapter, typical membrane materials, including polymers, metals, metal oxides, and carbon-based materials as well as electrochemical membrane modules for EMT, are reviewed. A few examples of these membrane materials are cited while their advantages and disadvantages are given a thorough discussion as well. Though a number of advanced membrane materials have exhibited outstanding performance in lab-scale research compared with that exhibited by conventional materials, their application in full scale is still limited by many factors, including the cost, stability, durability, and so on. To fill the gap between research interests and industrial needs, more efforts are required to further lower the cost and simplify the preparation processes of these emerging membrane materials. Moreover, verifications of the long-term stability and durability of these membrane materials under harsh condition and novel configurations of electrochemical membrane modules are also needed.