Abstract
Membrane technology is present in everyday life but its potential for energy and resource efficient cleaning and processing of water, air, and chemicals is not fully exploited. Besides process engineering also membrane development and especially material development are important parameters on the way to develop competitive membrane processes.
Polymers are very attractive candidates for membranes in many separation tasks, as they are much cheaper, easier to upscale and easier to handle in applications as compared to ceramic or metallic membranes. Polymers fail, however, if separations have to be carried out at very high temperatures or under chemically very harsh conditions.
In this contribution a few highlights in the material development of polymer membranes will be presented. On one side these will be block copolymers as candidates for a new generation of ultrafiltration membranes and on the other side dense microphase separated multiblock copolymer membranes and membranes obtained from thermally rearranged polymers for gas separation will be presented.
