ABSTRACT

Freshwater is currently becoming a scarce commodity and is used unsustainably in the majority of the world’s regions, as only 0.014% of the earth’s total volume of water is suitable for direct human consumption. It is anticipated that in the next few decades, access to water for drinking, agriculture, and industrial use will become an increasingly crucial challenge for many countries around the world [1]. Improving the effectiveness and efciency of water-purication technology, to produce clean water and protect the environment in a sustainable manner, is considered by many as perhaps the main challenge of the twenty-rst century [2]. Intensive efforts are underway throughout the world to avert this looming crisis with the conservation of the existing limited freshwater supply and the conversion of the abundantly available seawater through various desalination technologies. There is a large interest in the development of economically attractive desalination technologies. Over the years, a number of desalination methods have been developed among which distillation, reverse

14.1 Introduction ................................................................................................ 489 14.2 Types of MMMs for Desalination .............................................................. 491

14.2.1 RO Membranes ............................................................................. 491 14.2.2 FO Membranes ............................................................................. 492 14.2.3 Nanoltration ................................................................................ 493

14.3 The Technological Needs of MMMs for Desalination ............................... 494 14.4 Modication of Nanomaterials and Fabrication of MMMs ....................... 496 14.5 Performance Evaluation of MMMs for Desalination ................................. 498 14.6 Future Prospective and Concluding Remarks ............................................503 References ..............................................................................................................504