Advances in Responsive Membranes

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue came as the natural consequence of the previous one “Responsive Polymer Membranes”.

Today an ambitious target is the fabrication of ultra-smart systems, wherein the functions of sensing, acting and adapting are sequentially integrated. Within this frame, the membranes can play a key role in the build up of complex arrays, where complementary smart functions can be allocated and integrated.

Synthesis and assembly of smart membranes represent an attractive issue for the realization of nanodevices that may find application in (bio)sensors, actuators, drug delivery systems, drug discovery, clinical diagnostics, microfluidic systems, (bio)separations, regenerative medicine, power storage and release, environment monitoring, agro food safety, shield and microclimate regulation, and long-distance communication.

For coming years, the transit from passive to ultra-smart membranes is expected to bring key advances and innovation in Health, Environment, Food, Transport and Textile, yielding the real opportunity to combine efficiency with safety and security.

The category of intelligent membranes associates adaptive ability with reactive functions when changing surrounding media and includes flat films and hollow-fibers, nanocomposites layers, free-standing hydrogels, switchable interfaces, micro- capsules and core-shell structures.

In all these cases, controlled porosity, texture and chemical composition self-adjust and self-maintain, yielding regulated mass/energy flow or signals/information transfer in response to external physical and/or chemical solicitations.

In this respect, this special issue welcomes original papers and reviews that reflect breakthroughs in:

1. Synthesis of sensors materials with controlled structure and chemical composition that show selective responsiveness.
2. Sophisticated fabrication strategies to build up engineered structures where sensing, biosensing, bio-mimesis, separation, catalysis, conversion and delivery properties are interplayed on multiple scale lengths.
3. Molecular design based on experimental and theoretical studies dedicated to the understanding of the molecular mechanisms, which control responsive behaviour at the interface.
4. Emerging applications including drug delivery targeting, micro-reactors, wettability amplification, biofouling mitigation, fluid flows on molecular length scale, environment monitoring, clean energy production, ultra-smart textiles, telemedicine and regenerative medicine.
5. System integration: working sensing systems, microfluidics and labs-on-a-chip.

Dr. Annarosa Gugliuzza
Guest Editor

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.

• sensing membranes
• sensors
• intelligent materials
• actuators
• adaptive systems

• Responsive Polymer Membranes in Membranes (5 articles)