A Comprehensive Overview of the Current Status and Trends in High-Performance Membrane Materials

I. On High-Performance Membrane Materials
 

High-performance membrane materials are the core components of next-generation, highly efficient separation technologies. Endowed with energy‑saving and environmentally friendly attributes, they constitute strategic new materials for addressing challenges in water resources, energy, and environmental protection, as well as for upgrading traditional industries. These materials have become one of the key enabling technologies underpinning areas such as environmental pollution control, energy conservation and emissions reduction, and public welfare, playing a vital role in advancing China’s national economic development, fostering technological progress, and enhancing international competitiveness.
High-performance membrane materials are characterized by high separation efficiency, excellent stability, low cost, and long service life. Depending on their intended applications, they can be broadly classified into water‑treatment membranes, specialty separation membranes, gas‑separation membranes, biomedical membranes, and battery‑grade membranes. Among these, water‑treatment membranes include microfiltration membranes, ultrafiltration membranes, nanofiltration membranes, and reverse osmosis membranes; specialty separation membranes encompass ceramic membranes, ion‑exchange membranes, and pervaporation membranes; while gas‑separation membranes comprise gas–gas separation membranes, gas–solid separation membranes, and membranes for the recovery of volatile organic compounds.
The industrial chain of high-performance membrane materials encompasses membrane‑forming raw materials, membrane elements, membrane modules, membrane separation systems, and industrial application platforms. It spans the interdisciplinary domains of materials science, chemical engineering, energy, biotechnology, and environmental science, and its level of R&D is critical to the advancement of process industries and environmental protection sectors.
 

II. Current Status and Trends in Global Development
 

High-performance membrane materials have garnered significant attention from governments worldwide, with the membrane materials industry growing at an annual rate of approximately 15%. Among these, water‑treatment membranes have achieved industrialization and large‑scale deployment, entering a relatively mature phase and commanding the vast majority of market share, though their growth rate has moderated. Specialty separation membranes are currently undergoing rapid industrial expansion, with an increasing variety of membrane types and expanding application scales, driving sales into a period of robust growth. Gas‑separation membranes have also reached initial industrialization; as environmental regulations tighten, gas–solid separation membranes and membranes for recovering volatile organic compounds are advancing swiftly, offering promising prospects.
 

01 Gas Separation Membrane Materials

In the field of gas separation membrane materials, carbon dioxide separation membranes, hydrogen separation membranes, organic vapor recovery membranes, and gas–solid separation membranes have already achieved industrial-scale production and are being applied in areas such as natural gas purification, hydrogen recovery, organic vapor recovery, and gas dust removal. However, high-temperature mixed-conducting oxygen-permeable membranes for pure oxygen separation, fixed‑support membranes for carbon dioxide separation, and palladium and alloy membranes for high‑temperature hydrogen separation and purification remain at an early stage of commercialization. Current development trends are primarily focused on reducing membrane material costs, enhancing selectivity, permeability, and operational stability, as well as advancing research on fluorine‑containing gas separation membranes.
Internationally, research and development of membrane materials, as well as industrial-scale production facilities, are concentrated primarily in developed countries and regions such as the United States, Japan, and Europe. Key research institutions include the French National Centre for Scientific Research, the National University of Singapore, KU Leuven, Russian research institutes, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the University of Twente, among others. Major manufacturers comprise Toray, Nitto Denko, Kubota, GE, DOW, NGK, GFT, Air Products, UOP, Ube, Pall, and others.

02 Special Separation Membrane Materials

In the field of specialized separation membrane materials, ceramic ultrafiltration membranes have achieved industrial-scale production and are widely employed in process industries, while ceramic nanofiltration membranes have been commercialized. Current development trends are primarily focused on advancing high‑loading‑density ceramic membranes, developing low‑temperature fabrication techniques for ceramic ultrafiltration membranes, enhancing the separation performance and operational stability of ceramic nanofiltration membranes, and designing dedicated high‑performance ceramic membrane materials tailored for applications such as membrane distillation, membrane desulfurization, and industrial wastewater treatment.
Pervaporation membrane materials have already been deployed on a large scale for alcohol–water separation and are gradually being applied to the separation of organic compounds. Current research trends are primarily focused on enhancing the stability and acid resistance of pervaporation membranes. At present, Italy has developed ceramic‑membrane‑based crystallization and membrane distillation processes, while the United States is actively advancing the application of ceramic membranes in the oil and gas industry.

03 Water Treatment Membrane Materials

In the field of water‑treatment membrane materials, reverse osmosis membranes used for desalination have been developed into a comprehensive product line spanning high‑pressure, medium‑pressure, and low‑pressure variants, which now dominate the market. Current trends are primarily focused on enhancing the performance of polyamide reverse osmosis membranes, advancing the research and development of novel membrane materials and membrane processes, and developing large‑scale membrane modules, while also striving to further improve membrane operational stability, increase desalination efficiency and water production, and reduce operating energy consumption and production costs.
Membrane materials for water purification—specifically ultrafiltration membranes—have been widely adopted and have reached maturity in large-scale water treatment projects, including drinking water production, seawater desalination, pretreatment for reclaimed water reuse, and wastewater treatment. Nanofiltration membranes are now produced on an industrial scale and have been successfully implemented in advanced municipal water purification applications. Current research and development trends are primarily focused on enhancing permeate flux, improving fouling resistance and oxidation stability, and reducing membrane manufacturing costs.
Membrane bioreactors for wastewater treatment have been commercialized, and the market share of liner‑reinforced membrane bioreactor modules has grown rapidly. Current development trends are primarily focused on enhancing membrane material resistance to fouling and mechanical performance, as well as improving the quality of the permeate.
In the research and development of water‑treatment membrane materials, significant progress has been made in reverse osmosis membranes. U.S. scientists have employed a 3D‑printing technique based on electrospray deposition of reactive monomers to replace conventional interfacial polymerization, successfully achieving nanoscale precision in controlling the thickness and surface roughness of polyamide reverse osmosis membranes. Compared with commercially available reverse osmosis membranes, these new membranes exhibit higher NaCl rejection and faster pure‑water permeation rates, resulting in markedly improved overall performance (Science, 2018).
Dow has developed a high‑performance polyamide reverse osmosis membrane that delivers high flux, low energy consumption, and moderate desalination by employing a complexing agent to pre‑complex with acyl halide functional groups prior to the interfacial polymerization reaction, thereby enabling precise control of the process.

III. Current Status and Level of Development in China
 

In recent years, China has made significant progress in areas such as water‑treatment membrane materials, specialty separation membranes, and gas‑separation membranes. The performance of water‑treatment membranes has improved markedly, narrowing the gap with international cutting‑edge standards, while specialty and gas‑separation membranes have reached world‑class levels. Domestic membrane production capacity has expanded rapidly and is now widely employed in wastewater treatment, food processing, pharmaceuticals, chemical engineering, and other sectors. As a result, the industry’s capacity for technological innovation and its market competitiveness have both increased substantially. By 2019, the membrane industry had grown to nearly RMB 200 billion in size.
 

01 Gas Separation Membrane Materials

In the field of gas separation membrane materials, high-performance metallic membranes for gas–solid separation have been commercialized and are now employed in China’s nuclear fuel, polysilicon, and nonferrous metallurgy industries. These materials are currently advancing toward higher precision and multifunctionality, with the associated technological achievements recognized by the Second Prize of the 2017 National Invention Award. Additionally, a novel polytetrafluoroethylene membrane material has been developed, and a large-scale production line has been established; these membranes have been successfully applied in areas such as boiler flue‑gas purification, waste‑incineration flue‑gas treatment, and dye‑product recovery.
In the field of membrane materials for organic solvent recovery, China has developed a novel polyoctylmethylsiloxane membrane and engineered high-performance membranes for the recovery of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), enhancing the swelling resistance and selectivity of composite membranes and enabling low-cost, energy-efficient industrial applications for light hydrocarbon recovery. Additionally, organic–inorganic composite VOC‑recovery membranes have been developed, and the world’s largest production base for organic gas separation membranes has been established, leading to widespread adoption in VOC recovery across the petroleum, chemical, and pharmaceutical industries.

02 Special Separation Membrane Materials

In the field of specialized separation membrane materials, China has made significant progress in ceramic membrane technologies, particularly in small-pore membranes and applications for water treatment and solvent separation. Using an improved sol–gel process, a series of ceramic nanofiltration membranes—including TiO₂, ZrO₂, TiO₂/ZrO₂, and reduced graphene oxide—have been developed. Moreover, by employing Al₂O₃ membranes as the core component in vacuum membrane distillation, highly efficient desalination has been successfully achieved. Jiuwu High-Tech’s TiO₂/Al₂O₃/ZrO₂ ceramic membranes now boast an annual production capacity exceeding 100,000 square meters and have been successfully deployed in lithium extraction from salt lakes; the company is listed on the ChiNext board.
China’s flat‑plate ceramic membranes have also been commercialized, with successful applications in Sinopec’s demonstration project for the advanced treatment of produced water from oil and gas fields (treatment capacity: 1,440 m³/day) and in China National Coal Group’s demonstration project for the treatment of chemical wastewater from coal‑to‑methanol production (treatment capacity: 9,000 m³/day).
To meet the demands of organic solvent dehydration, Jiangsu Jiutian has developed a high‑flux, high‑packing‑density hollow‑fiber molecular sieve membrane and pioneered a series of novel solvent‑dehydration processes, enabling low‑energy dehydration of more than ten different solvents. The company’s annual production capacity for these molecular sieve membranes exceeds 20,000 square meters.
In the field of ion-exchange membrane materials, Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Shandong Dongyue Group have collaborated to successfully bring the third-generation chlor-alkali ion-exchange membrane DF2807 into production, with product performance reaching internationally advanced levels. Shandong Tianwei Membrane Co., Ltd. boasts an annual production capacity of 300,000 square meters for diffusion dialysis membranes. Meanwhile, a research team at the University of Science and Technology of China has developed a green, scalable route for preparing homogeneous ion-exchange membranes—by selecting polymers with specific structures and replacing chloromethylation with bromination. Ion-exchange membranes produced using this technology, which are both low-cost and highly stable, have now been commercialized.

03 Water Treatment Membrane Materials

In the field of water‑treatment membrane materials, China has made rapid progress in the research, development, and application of reverse osmosis membranes, general water‑treatment membranes, and water‑purification membranes. Guizhou Shidai Wotun Co., Ltd. now boasts an annual production capacity of over 17 million square meters for reverse osmosis membranes, while Jinmem Technology Co., Ltd. has an annual output exceeding 4 million square meters of polyvinylidene fluoride hollow‑fiber membranes. Additionally, Biyuan Co., Ltd. has established a nanofiltration membrane production line spanning several hundred square meters.
Alongside the rapid expansion of the industry, groundbreaking advances have also been made in fundamental research: Collaborative work by Nanjing Tech University and other institutions has led to the development of a novel graphene‑based membrane material. By introducing potassium ions—whose hydrated diameter is the smallest—between graphene layers, this material can simultaneously achieve efficient rejection of all ions in saline solutions while allowing water molecules to pass through rapidly, holding promise for seawater desalination (Nature, 2017). At Zhejiang University, adding polyvinyl alcohol to the aqueous phase was used to enhance the difference in diffusion coefficients between the surfactant and the inhibitor during interfacial polymerization, thereby forming a Turing‑type structure that significantly boosts both the water flux and selectivity of polyamide reverse osmosis membranes (Science, 2018). Meanwhile, Guizhou Shidai Wotun Co., Ltd. has developed a new type of polyamide reverse osmosis membrane characterized by a defect‑free, continuous membrane layer and a loosely structured pore architecture, achieved by incorporating modified oxidized graphene nanoparticles into the reaction phase and ethanol into the aqueous phase. This membrane exhibits high desalination efficiency and elevated water flux.
Overall, China’s R&D and production entities with strong scientific research capabilities or substantial industrialization scale include institutions such as the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tsinghua University, Zhejiang University, Nanjing Tech University, University of Science and Technology of China, Tianjin University, and the Northwest Institute for Nonferrous Metal Research, as well as companies like Biwa Source, Guizhou Shidai Wotun, Hainan Lisheng, Hangzhou Water Treatment Center, Jin膜 Technology, Beijing Sino, Ningbo Qinyuan, Jiangsu Jiugu, Shandong Tianwei, Nanjing Jiusi, and Jiangsu Jiutian. More than ten publicly listed companies are already focused on membrane material production and applications; however, in general, these enterprises remain relatively small in scale, and their innovation capacity still requires further enhancement.

IV. Further Development Strategies and Recommendations

Although China has made significant progress in high-performance membrane materials, it still faces certain difficulties and challenges.
 

I. The capacity for original innovation still needs to be strengthened. In China, substantial breakthroughs have yet to be achieved in the separation mechanisms of membrane materials and in their fabrication processes. The capacity for designing fundamental membrane architectures remains limited, and the performance, specifications, and variety of membrane products still require further improvement and expansion. Domestically produced membranes are often characterized by imitation rather than innovation, with few truly original offerings. Although domestic membrane materials are already available in certain application areas, their performance continues to lag behind that of foreign counterparts, and the incomplete range of product specifications undermines the competitiveness of Chinese‑made membranes in practical applications.
 

II. The rate of research-to-practice translation still needs to be improved. Many innovative membrane materials remain at the laboratory research stage, with subsequent technology transfer lacking adequate platforms, funding, and human resources, resulting in slow commercialization and limited practical applications. Meanwhile, the production of high-performance membrane materials is closely linked to raw materials, fabrication processes, and automated control, making it a multidisciplinary field. At present, an effective interdisciplinary coordination mechanism has yet to be established, hindering the rapid advancement of high‑performance membrane technologies.
 

III. Insufficient application in large-scale projects or high-end sectors. At present, in high-end application areas and large-scale chemical industrial processes—such as large‑scale seawater desalination and major water‑treatment projects—the membrane products used are largely dominated by foreign manufacturers, with domestic membrane materials holding a market share of less than 10%. Although some domestically produced membrane products have already demonstrated a certain degree of market competitiveness, the integrated application systems encompassing “domestic membrane elements–membrane equipment–membrane engineering” still require further development.
 

To further and effectively advance the development of high-performance membrane materials technology and industry in China, the following recommendations are proposed:
 

I. Strengthen original, fundamental research. The research will focus on areas such as uniform-pore and confinement‑mediated mass‑transfer membranes, with an emphasis on developing disruptive membrane materials, including two‑dimensional membrane systems. A framework will be established for the molecular design of application‑oriented membrane materials, along with methods for tailoring surface properties and controlling pore microstructures. Furthermore, the study will investigate membrane surface phenomena, confinement effects, and the transport behavior of substances within nanoscale and micropores during separation processes, aiming to achieve fundamental theoretical breakthroughs in membrane science.
 

II. Develop high-performance membrane materials. Addressing critical national needs, we are tackling key technologies for the large-scale production of high-performance, low-cost water‑treatment membranes—such as mixed‑matrix membranes, organic–inorganic composite membrane materials, anti‑fouling reverse osmosis membranes, and organic nanofiltration membranes—as well as specialty separation membranes—including high‑loading‑density, low‑cost ceramic membranes, acid‑resistant hollow‑fiber molecular‑sieve membranes, and advanced ion‑exchange membranes—and gas‑separation membranes—such as novel high‑temperature separation membranes, volatile organic compound recovery membranes, and carbon‑dioxide separation membranes—while developing high‑performance membrane materials tailored for major engineering projects and cutting‑edge applications.
 

III. Strengthen demonstration projects for the application of domestically produced membrane materials. Conduct research on membrane‑integrated application technologies, expand the use of domestically developed membrane technologies in coal chemical engineering, petrochemicals, bioenergy, and other sectors, and actively promote their deployment in the separation of bulk chemicals—particularly in the production of electronic‑grade solvents and specialty chemicals—while carrying out demonstration projects for integrated applications. Strengthen the application of high‑performance membrane materials to enable them to play a pivotal role in China’s comprehensive management of water resources and the environment, restructuring and clean utilization of energy, upgrading and transforming traditional industries, social development, and the circular economy.

(Source: Chemical Industry Think Tank)