Membranes for Gas Separation and Purification Processes

Dear Colleagues,

The world’s energy consumption is generally driven by the strong demand arising from the rapid expansion in human population and economic growth. Nevertheless, energy generation which is conducted through the combustion of primary energy resources such as fossil fuel and natural gas leads to substantial environmental consequences such as air pollution, greenhouse gas emission, and the emission of undesirable pollutants. On the other hand, although natural gas (primarily methane) possesses lower carbon per unit of energy and burns a relatively cleaner flue gas in comparison to primary energy resources (thus minimizing CO₂ emission), additional purification steps are still required, as the raw materials contain other desirable components such as light hydrocarbons (ethane and propane), which are desirable for the production of polymers (e.g., polyethylene and polyvinyl chloride). Thus, efforts in utilizing the energy resources effectively can be conducted through harvesting the valuable products from the raw materials together with the separation of emitted flue gas after the combustion process to mitigate the emission of greenhouse gases to the environment. To date, existing technologies for gas separation have been represented by (water or amine) scrubbing, cryogenic distillation, and swing adsorption processes. Nevertheless, all these aforementioned processes come with a high energy penalty. Therefore, membrane-based separation processes have been proposed as alternative candidates for gas separation and purification due to their small plant footprint and lower energy penalty (no phase change is required).

The purpose of this Special Issue is to cover recent progress in membranes in the field of gas separation and purification processes, which are not limited to the development and synthesis of membranes in various configurations (flat sheets and hollow fibers), modelling of gas transport properties, techno-economic analyses, and the eventual verification of the gas separation performance of membranes. Interested authors are welcomed to submit their latest research findings, review papers, perspectives, and review papers on the topics listed above.

Dr. Chuah Chong Yang
Guest Editor