Advanced Fabrication of Porous Membranes for Membrane Contactors Processes

This chapter provides new insights into the fabrication of porous membranes, which moves from traditional phase inversion to a set of advanced templating procedures. To get a high-defined structure in membranes is explained to provide interesting solutions for the advancement of membrane contactor processes. Benefits in productivity and efficiency can be from reproducible and amplified events, which take place in every region of the membrane. A mathematical description of mass and energy transfer through porous membranes focuses on the relationship between transport mechanisms and structural/chemical features of membranes. So, the basics are described for some membrane contactor processes, including membrane distillation (MD), osmotic distillation (OMD), membrane crystallization (MCr), membrane emulsification (ME), gas-liquid membrane contactor (GLMC), and membrane condenser (MeC). A discussion is provided on materials and membrane specificities, with a special emphasis on green materials and fabrication procedures. Manufacturing techniques that enable one to get lithographic precision in polymeric architectures are reviewed, while compelling MD water desalination case studies are examined in relation to productivity-efficiency trade-offs.