“Smart Membrane Materials and Systems: From Flat Membranes to Microcapsule Membranes" comprehensively and systematically treats modern understanding of smart or intelligent membranes with environmental stimuli-responsive functions. The contents range from flat membranes to microcapsule membranes with various response properties, such as thermo-response, pH-response, glucose-response, molecular-recognition, and dual-/multi-stimuli-response. While chapters may be read as stand-alone, together they clearly describe cover design concepts, fabrication strategies and methods, microstructures and performances of smart membranes. Vivid schematics and illustrations throughout the book enhance accessibility to the theory and technologies. The book is intended for researchers and postgraduate students in membrane science and technology, separations and controlled-release. Dr. Liang-Yin Chu is a professor at the School of Chemical Engineering, Sichuan University, China. He is a Distinguished Young Scholar of the National Natural Science Foundation of China and a Distinguished Professor of "Chang Jiang Scholars Program" of the Ministry of Education of China.

Electrically Conductive Membrane Materials and Systems offers in-depth insight into the transformative role of electrically conductive materials in membrane separation processes for desalination and water treatment. The book focuses on the intelligent design of conductive membranes and systems, fouling and related phenomena, fouling control using electrically conductive materials, and electrically tunable membrane systems for microfiltration, ultrafiltration, nanofiltration, reverse osmosis, and membrane distillation. With rising concerns around inaccessibility to freshwater and the ever increasing threats of population growth, climate change, and urban development, the book brings electrically conducting materials to the forefront of membrane separation technology with an emphasis on their role in the mitigation of fouling and related phenomena. Electrically conducting materials expand the versatility of membrane technology and ultimately improve access to safe water. The book is important reading for scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and enthusiasts from the water industry who seek to familiarize themselves with a groundbreaking area of study within modern desalination and water treatment. • Explores novel membrane materials and systems from preparation methods, materials selection, and their application in monitoring, fouling control, and performance enhancement. • Examines the mechanism of fouling prevention and cleaning in various electrically conductive materials. • Evaluates the scalability of antifouling materials and coatings, as well as electrically enhanced processes for monitoring and control in membrane separation technology. • Assesses advantages and limitations of applying electrically conductive membrane systems to fouling control for specific water treatment applications. • Provides a critical review of scientific literature in the specialized area of electrical conductive materials and systems for membrane technology.

Smart membranes that respond to environmental stimuli are gaining attention because of their potential use in a variety of applications, from drug delivery to water treatment. Their surface characteristics and/or permeation properties, including pressure-driven hydraulic permeability and concentration-driven diffusional permeability, can be adjusted in response to small chemical and/or physical stimuli in the environment. This book will cover topics such as novel design and fabrication strategies, approaches for controlling structure and performance, as well as cutting-edge applications of smart membranes. It will deliver new insights and fundamentals for both professionals and newcomers in related fields. Edited by an internationally renowned expert and with contributions from key researchers, Smart Membranes provides a comprehensive overview of the topic. It will appeal to students and researchers across materials science, chemistry, chemical engineering, pharmaceutical science and biomedical science.

This book addresses the reader to use synergistically the concepts of membranes and sensors materials. It contains insightful contributions from leading scientists working in both the fields. The focus is on the fabrication of smart membranes from sensor materials and related impact on many technologically sophisticated areas such as telemedicine, microfluidics, drug delivery targeting, (bio)separation, labs-on-a-chip, textiles, power storage and release, environment monitoring, agro-food safety, cosmetics, architecture, automotive and so on. This book covers various topics, including the choice of materials and techniques for assembling responsive membranes with ability to transport mass, energy and signals on demand; the reader will find through the book an extensive description of the best techniques used to monitor molecular scale events, which are regarded as responsible for the smartness of multifunctional objects and for the conversion of chemical signals into optical, electrical, thermal and mechanical responses. The reader is encouraged to use this cross-disciplinary discussion for his own research. Chemical, biological and physical concepts, expressed through the book, contribute to form a common language, which will allow the reader to discover causes for reflection and innovation, measuring how smart objects with desired properties can be tailored from exiting materials and used flexibly for different developed applications. Specifically: This book deals with materials smartness and suitable techniques to assemble and characterize them in sensor-like membranes. This book shows how ultra-smart functional devices can be accomplished by using traditional raw materials. This book describes particular key events, which control 'sense to react and adapt' mechanisms. The potential of sensor-like membranes in some key strategic fields is examined with particular emphasis on biomedicine, food and textiles markets. The benefits arising from the use of smart membranes are analysed in terms of life quality, safety, and innovation.

This book describes several novel applications currently under investigation that exploit the unique actuator and sensor capabilities of smart material compounds. In addition to present and projected applications, this book provides comprehensive coverage of both linear and nonlinear modeling techniques necessary to characterize materials in a manner that facilitates transducer design and control development. The author focuses on ferroelectric, magnetic, and shape memory compounds and also addresses applications exploiting amorphous and ionic polymers, magnetorheological compounds, and fiber optic sensors. By providing a unified treatment of both linear and nonlinear characterization frameworks, Smart Material Systems: Model Development encompasses both low to moderate drive levels, which constitute the primary focus of most present texts, and the high drive regimes dictated by present and future applications. This will significantly enhance the design of transducers and control systems which exploit the unique actuator and sensor capabilities provided by smart material compounds.

Selected, peer reviewed papers from the International Conference on Smart Materials and Intelligent Systems (SMIS) 2010, December 17-20, 2010, Chongqing, China