Hydrophobic membranes

Membrane engineering is going to be strategic to meet the challenges for a more sustainable process industry and fluid waste stream treatment aimed at the zero-liquid discharge approach. The heart of several emerging membrane technologies is a hydrophobic membrane. This chapter will begin by introducing the basics of hydrophobicity on membranes, then an indication of the main commercial hydrophobic membranes available in the market will be provided. Afterwards, in the chapter, the main preparation approaches of hydrophobic membranes will be illustrated including sintering, stretching, electrospinning, and phase inversion techniques. Finally, several processes based on the application of hydrophobic membranes will be briefly discussed in order to appreciate their role and provide an idea of the application flexibility that they feature.