Electrospun nanofibrous membranes as promising materials for developing high-performance desalination technologies

Rising population, together with rapid industrial development, are making freshwater shortage an ever-increasing crisis globally. In addition to the conventional strategy such as water reuse, desalination has proven to be an effective method to meet this requirement, especially membrane-based desalination technology. Besides the conventional reverse osmosis (RO) and nanofiltration (NF) desalination, other membrane-based methods such as membrane distillation (MD) and forward osmosis (FO) have also been exploited as promising alternatives. For all the membrane-based desalination, performance of the membrane is the key issue. However, the currently used membranes for the main desalination technologies are all faced with some challenges, e.g., low permeation for RO, low selectivity for NF, wetting for MD, and internal concentrative polarization for FO. Thus, researchers are all pursuing more advanced membranes to meet these challenges. Particularly, developing novel membranes is a promising alternative. Electrospun nanofibrous membranes (ENMs) provide an alternative for various membrane-based desalination thanks to their versatility in tuning membrane morphology, structure, composition, fiber diameter, pore size and pore size distribution, and fiber/membrane functionalization. In this review paper, we discussed the application of ENMs in typical membrane desalination process presented by RO, NF, MD, and FO. We emphasize on the usage of superiorities of ENMs in tackling the problems of the currently used membranes such as low membrane permeability, membrane wetting, and internal concentrative polarization. We also proposed the future directions of ENMs development in developing more advanced membranes for desalination. • Top challenges include low permeations, wetting, ICP, etc. were discussed. • Research of ENMs in advancing high-performance desalination was elaborated. • Future directions of application of ENMs in desalination membrane were proposed.