Omniphobic membranes in membrane distillation for desalination applications: A mini-review

Abstract

Membrane processes are extensively used to provide purified water from various saline water bodies. Membrane distillation (MD), one such membrane process, is mainly used for desalinating highly saline feed waters and to provide clean water. The design of robust membranes recently received considerable attention to address wetting, scaling, and fouling issues that hampered performance in long-term MD process. The current review discusses the omniphobic membranes employed in MD process for desalinating highly saline feedwaters containing diverse low surface tension substances. Also, it summarizes the basic concepts, fabrication and modification methods involved in designing omniphobic membranes. The developed omniphobic membranes have re-entrant structures and low surface energy which effectively provided anti-wetting and anti-fouling ability against saline feedwaters containing various low-surface tension substances. Further, the review focused on future research directions for developing omniphobic membranes for MD desalination applications.