Membrane Engineering for Today and for Tomorrow

Abstract

© 2020 MPRL. All rights reserved. When in the early 80’s the European Membrane Society was created, the term Membrane Engineering was not existing. A membrane industry was just appearing. The overall membrane market was less than US$1 billion per year. However, very interesting the fact that all around the world and particularly in Japan, China, USA and Europe, membrane science and research started to attract a very significant attention. The journal Membrane Science was founded in 1976 and it started a very successful story; MAKU (membrane in Japanese) was the scientific journal of Japan Membrane Society created at the end of 70’s. The European Membrane Society was created in 1981 and, few years later, also the North America Membrane Society started its activities following the first very successful conference on membranes in Stresa (ITALY) organized by the European Membrane Society and the Membrane Society of Japan. Also, in China the attention to membrane science and research was already evident as well testified by the creation in November 1981 of the Membrane Science and Technology Journal and by the editorial of Prof. Zheng Zaixing: “Membrane systems are present everywhere in Nature, especially in living organs but the progress of human knowledge in these fields is rather slow... Our magazine appears at a historical and critical moment...” Today, Membrane Engineering and Membrane Operations, in general, impact on the most strategic processes (Figure 1). The most successful case is in desalination (Figure 2).