Membrane engineering and its role in oil refining and petrochemical industry

Nowadays, an important contribution to the sustainable industrial growth might come not only from the development of new materials but also from the re-design of process engineering, which leads to the development and the re-designing of more compact and efficient new processes in many areas of applications. As already done in large part of processes in Nature, membrane operations can serve in molecular separations, chemical transformations, water and energy transfer between different phases. Indeed, these technologies well fit the principles of this design philosophy and this is testified by the various applications of membranes in chemical and petrochemical industry and many are the successful examples of processes that have moved from lab-scale to pilot plant up to a demonstration unit in refinery. The main aim of this chapter is to show the main applications of membrane technology in the petrochemical industry and the related current research trends, focusing on the impact that membrane technology can have on the process sustainability.