Water Desalination via Membrane Pervaporation

Addressing the critical challenge of global water scarcity requires desalination technologies that can treat complex, high-salinity feedstocks with greater efficiency and reliability. Pervaporation is an emerging membrane-based separation process that offers an efficient and sustainable alternative to traditional desalination technologies for desalting seawater and brackish water by separating water vapor from saline feed solutions. This chapter provides an in-depth overview of pervaporation for desalination. It details the fundamental principle and transport mechanism, highlighting the role of selective membranes in achieving high separation efficiency. Additionally, it discusses advanced membrane materials, such as polymeric, inorganic, 2D-material, and hybrid mixed-matrix membranes, along with advanced fabrication techniques such as solution casting and interfacial polymerization to achieve high performance and stability. Furthermore, the chapter systematically evaluates the effects of various key process parameters (e.g., feed temperature and feed salinity) on the overall separation performance of pervaporation membranes. Ultimately, this chapter provides an overall understanding of pervaporation membrane technology as a sustainable and viable method for desalinating seawater and, therefore, lays the foundation for future research and development toward PV membranes with higher separation efficiencies.