Chapters authored
Electrospun Nanofibrous Membranes for Water Treatment
Nanofibrous structures offer a lot of fascinating features due to large specific surface area. This makes them promising for a wide range of applications, most specifically water treatment. This new generation of highly porous membranes exhibits great prospect to be used in various separation applications due to their distinguished features such as remarkably high porosity (≥90%) and interconnected 3D pore structure. As compared with the conventional techniques, Electrospinning has been highlighted for developing unique porous membranes. Electrospun nanofibrous membranes have been more and more investigated to a lot of advanced water treatment purposes. This chapter reviews the updates on electrospun nanofibrous membranes with a particular prominence in recent accomplishments, bottlenecks, and future perspectives in water treatment. To start, the basic principles of electrospinning are discussed. Next, past and recent efforts for fabricating electrospun MF membranes for various applications are reviewed. The application of electrospun nanofibers as the scaffold for TFC (thin-film composite) membranes in the pressure- and osmotic-membrane processes is then introduced. The new application of electrospun nanofibrous membranes for the thermally-driven MD (membrane distillation) process for water treatment as well as strategies for performance enhancement is discussed. To finish, conclusions and perspectives are stated according to recent developments.
Part of the book: Advances in Membrane Technologies