From the Introduction

The past century has been characterised by resource-intensive industrial development particularly in some Asian countries, by growth in the Earth’s population, by significant elongation of life expectation, and by an overall increase in standards for quality of life. These positive aspects of our recent history have been combined, however, with the appearance of related problems such as water stress, environment pollution, and increase of CO2 emissions in the atmosphere. The negative aspects of our recent progress have been very much related to the velocity at which transformations themselves have occurred and to the lack of innovation and introduction of new strategies that might control or minimize the negative aspects of the industrial development worldwide. A clear example is wastewater treatment: from 1556 until today the same strategy is basically employed for various wastewater treatment systems.

The need to achieve knowledge-intensive industrial development is well recognized. This permits the transition from an industrial system based on quantity to one based on quality. Human capital is more and more becoming the driving force of this socio-economic transformation. The challenge of sustainable growth relies on the use of advanced technologies. Membrane technologies are already recognized in many fields as ranking among the best available technologies (BAT) able to contribute to this process.

Process engineering is one of the disciplines necessary to resolve some of the problems brought on by industrial development in the past century. In particular, the logic of process intensification has been suggested as the best approach. Process intensification consists of innovative equipment, design, and process development methods expected to bring substantial improvements in chemical and other manufacturing and processing: decreasing production costs, equipment size, energy consumption, and waste generation and improving remote control, information fluxes, and process flexibility.

An interesting and important case is the continuous growth of modern membrane engineering, whose basic aspects satisfy the requirements of process intensification. Membrane operations—with the intrinsic characteristics of efficiency and operational simplicity, high selectivity and permeability for the transport of specific components, compatibility between different membrane operations in integrated systems, low energetic requirements, good stability under operating conditions and environment compatibility, easy control and scale-up, and large operational flexibility—represent an interesting answer for the rationalization of chemical and industrial productions .

Meet the Editors

Editors-in-Chief

Professor Enrico Drioli has been working in Membrane Science and Membrane Engineering for many years, beginning as a student in Chemistry at the University of Naples. He is a Full Professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials at the University of Calabria, where he founded the Institute of Membrane Technology of the Italian Research Council in 1993. He served there as Director until December 2008. He also served as Dean of the School of Engineering at the University of Calabria from 1982 to 1985.
 
His scientific activity has focused mainly on the following fields: Membrane Science and Engineering, Membranes in Artificial Organs, Integrated Membrane Processes, Membrane Preparation and Transport Phenomena in Membranes, Membrane Distillation and Membrane Contactors, and Catalytic Membrane and Catalytic Membrane Reactors.
 
He is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including:
 
Doctorate Honoris Causa from University of Paul Sabatier of Toulouse (France) (8 July 2009); International Cooperation Honor Award, September 2005, given by the Membrane Industry Association of China (MIAC) for his special dedication to the International Cooperation between China and Europe in the field of membrane and science technology; President of the European Society of Membrane Science and Technology (today European Membrane Society) (1982 – 1998); Member of the International Scientific Advisory Committee of the Grand Water Research Institute at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Israel (since 2004); Member and Moderator of the Research Advisory Council of the Middle East Desalination Research Center Oman, Muscat (since May 1997); Member of the International Advisory Board of the State Key Laboratory of Catalysis, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (since 2007); Founding member of the European Federation on Regenerative Medicine (since 2006); Expert on the panels of the OECD project “Nanotechnology and clean water” (www.oecd.org/sti/nano).
 
He is also the author of more 530 scientific papers, 18 patents in the field of Membrane Science and Technology, and 10 scientific books .

Lidietta Giorno is a membrane biotechnologist with a strong background in biological science, chemical technologies, and new materials. Her research experience includes membrane bioengineering, biocatalytic membrane reactors, integrated membrane systems for bioseparations and bioconversions, downstream processing based on molecular separation, membrane chirotechnology, and membrane emulsifiers.
 
She has been involved in membrane science and engineering research and development for almost twenty years. She is Director of the Institute on Membrane Technology of the National Research Council of Italy, ITM-CNR, and is involved in research co-operations at the European and international levels.  Dr. Giorno has worked abroad in the USA at Sepracor Inc., in 1992; in The Netherlands at ATO-DLO, in 1994; in France, at The University of Compiegne, in 1997 and 2000. She is Visiting Professor at Tianjin University of Science and Technology, China, since 2008.
 
Lidietta Giorno is co-author of three books and some 70 peer-reviewed scientific papers in international journals. She is a member of the editorial boards and referee pools of scientific journals and research agencies, and she sits on the boards of several international committees and scientific societies. In addition, Dr. Giorno has served on the European Membrane Society Council for two mandates and is currently the President of the EMS Council and editor of the EMS Membrane Newsletter.