Membrane Applications in Energy Industry

Dear Colleagues,

Membranes have been playing an important role to alleviate the energy penalty and prohibitive cost associated with the separation, purification and conversion of petroleum and other industrial commodities amounting to a large part of energy productions worldwide. The membrane industry has been devoted to solving the large demand for water in the energy industry, pollution of the atmosphere and water environment, and the development of new energy industries, especially through the reengineering of process industries, improving the utilization of energy and resources, and reducing the emission of environmental pollutants.

Despite a number of scientific and technological advances that have been witnessed in the numerical and experimental studies for the application of membranes in the energy industry, uncertainties and knowledge gaps still exist. For example, the accurate modelling of fluid flow and heat transfer penetrating the separation membrane is still under development and the efficient simulation of multiphase/multi-physics fluid flow and heat transfer in the separator containing membrane is still expected. The effect of temperature and pressure on the membrane structure and effectiveness in practical petrochemical operation environments is not clear yet, while the corrosion caused by the production liquid with a strong acid or alkali property is still a big challenge. A wider range of membrane applications have been identified as a response to current new trends in the energy industry, for example, membrane filtration used in the carbon dioxide capture and sequestration, which is connected to the conventional energy consumption facilities to reduce carbon emission.

This Special Issue seeks to include research by engineers and scientists in the aforementioned fields or those who are interdisciplinary, to highlight the current developments of membrane application in energy industry, both in theory and methods, to exchange the latest research ideas, and to promote further collaborations in the community. We invite investigators to make both practical and theoretical contributions to the literature in this special collection, and both literature reviews and original research papers are welcomed. 

Dr. Tao Zhang
Dr. Yuansi Tian
Guest Editors

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