Technologies at the Service of Sustainable Development Through Process Intensification

Membrane Technologies at the Service of Sustainable Development Through Process Intensification 

In today s economy, engineers must respond to the very important changing needs of industrial processes that aim to satisfy, at the same time, stronger constraints on raw materials, energy saving and environmental impact imposed by a sustainable development and the ever-increasing demand of consumers for new products with specific end-use properties. To respond correctly these requests, which are a little contradictory, process intensification appears to be a privileged path. 

Basically, process intensification aims at replacing large, expensive, energy-intensive equipments or processes with ones that are smaller, cheaper and more efficient. At the same time, they have to minimize environmental impact, increase safety, improve remote control and automation and ensure a better product quality. 

Undoubtedly, artificial membranes and related technologies meet these different requests. This is not entirely surprising if we consider that evolution has based all life mechanisms on the use of natural membranes. With cell membranes as an ultimate model, breakthrough biomimetic approaches offer a privileged direction to reach sustainable development and citizen well-being at the core of the social demand. 

The term membrane technology has encompassed, in recent decades, various mass transfer operations using a thin layer at an interphase. They differ from classical operations of chemical engineering because they were built around materials with original properties acting under the effect of specific driving forces. Today the ideas have evolved, and a more total analysis, integrating in a far better way the process 

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