Preface

Water is the most abundant and renewable resource in the world. Unfortunately, only a small quantity fits for use in sustaining human life. In addition, the population growth coupled with industrialization and urbanization has led to an increased pollution of existing freshwater resources resulting in an increased demand for fresh water. At the same time, challenges related to water systems are expected to increase in the next future, requiring further investment and technological innovation to meet global needs. Nowadays water recycling is widely accepted as a sustainable option to respond to the general increase of fresh water demand, water shortages and for environmental protection. According to this view, industrial companies are more and more interested in recycling their wastewaters in order to reach an ideal 'zero-discharge' condition. Membrane technology has become a significant separation technology in the field of water filtration over the past two decades, providing effective alternatives to related technologies such as adsorption, extraction, distillation, ion exchangers, and sand filters. It includes desalination, obtaining drinking water from salt water, as well as purification of ground water or wastewater. Low energy consumption, continuous separation, easy scale-up, modularity, remote control and no phase separation are well-recognized key advantages of membrane processes over conventional separation technologies. The growth of the global membranes market is mainly due to the impressive developments of materials used for membrane fabrication and modification, the improvements of membrane modules and the evolution of different related systems, plants and equipments. This book covers the most recent and applicable achievements on materials, processes and applications of membranes for water treatment. The book is split in three different parts. The first one is related to both novel membrane materials and advances in membrane operations. The second part considers how to improve the membrane performance and the last one illustrates selected applications in water treatment. In the following, each chapter is briefly introduced.