Membrane Technologies for Water Applications: Highlights from a Selection of European Research Projects

Tackling the growing gap between water demand and water supply, while achieving good status of all water bodies, is a growing challenge worldwide. As part of the solution, membranes for water applications are arousing great interest as potentially cost-effective answers to a large range of purification and separation needs. A series of Community research projects administered by the European Commission under the environment theme of the RTD framework programmes, has investigated and tested new membrane technologies from lab-scale to full-scale for municipal and industrial wastewater treatment, as well as for drinking water production by routes including the desalination of seawater and brackish water.