Advanced Nanofiltration Membranes: Fabrication, Characterization, and Applications

Dear Colleagues,

Water resource scarcity and water pollution have affected industry, commerce and agriculture worldwide in recent years, which has brought a serious crisis in both production and daily life. Therefore, it is imminent to explore a well-established and validated technology for solving this formidable water environmental dilemma. Nanofiltration (NF) technology has developed rapidly due to its high efficiency and flexibility. In particular, it can efficiently remove salts, organic pollutants, pathogens, bacteria, etc. Consequently, it is widely used in desalination, water reuse, food industry, and the separation and concentration of drugs in wastewater, among other applications. However, there are still numerous challenges for the use of NF in practical applications which must be overcome; these include high-performance nanofiltration membranes, the trade-off between permeance and selectivity, the high processing cost per produced unit of purified water, the fine regulation of membrane structure and the formation mechanism, deep insight on separation mechanisms underlying the purification of multiple components, antifouling, antibacterial, and long-term stability.

This Special Issue on “Advanced Nanofiltration Membranes: Fabrication, Characterization, and Applications” is intended to cover the recent developments and discoveries related to high-performance nanofiltration (NF) membranes and NF-membrane-based processes. The Issue provides a perfect opportunity for researchers to report on the topics of, but not limited to, new types of nanofiltration membranes, including novel membrane materials related polymer and inorganic materials, membrane fabrication technologies, NF-based membrane applications to water purification, reuse and wastewater treatment in the field of drinking water, industrial areas, food and pharmaceuticals industry, etc.; NF membrane module research; and state-of-the-art membrane technologies towards process intensification/integration. Research articles and critical reviews related to the scope of the Special Issue are welcome for submission.

The main topics include (but are not limited to): 

• Fabrication of advanced nanofiltration membranes related to the novel polymer and inorganic materials;
• Nanomaterial-based nanofiltration membranes;
• Correlation between the membrane structure and performance, related to the design and regulation of membrane formation;
• Regulation membrane structure focusing on special application fields;
• Characterization and evaluation of nanofiltration membranes via diverse physicochemical techniques, including X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), FTIR spectroscopy, thermal methods (DSC, TGA, and DMA), and morphological methods (AFM, SEM, TEM, and FESEM);
• Nanofiltration performance, including permeance, selectivity, antifouling ability, antibacterial capacity, stability, chlorine resistant aspects, etc.
• Nanofiltration for environmental applications.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Tao Wang
Dr. Luying Wang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Membranes is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• nanofiltration
• membranes
• nanomaterials
• nanocomposite membranes
• interfacial polymerization
• polyamide
• desalination
• antifouling
• chlorine resistant