Recent developments on nanostructured polymer-based membranes

•Recent advances in nanostructured membranes in different applications are reviewed.•Impressive progress has been made on nanostructured membranes in gas separation.•Significant improvements on polyamide reverse osmosis membranes have been achieved.•Ultrafiltration membranes have potential for novel applications due to their nanoscale pores.

Advances in nanotechnology in recent years enhance the R&D in nanostructured membranes. This paper reviews the recent developments of the nanostructured polymer-based membranes, formed by incorporating nanomaterials and/or porous membranes with nanoscale pores, for gas separations, reverse osmosis, ultrafiltration, and other potential applications. Significant progress has been made on the development of nanostructured membranes for gas separations, particularly for CO2 separations from H2, N2 and CH4. Continued improvements on the nanostructured reverse osmosis polyamide membranes via interfacial polymerization have been made along with the efforts on developing novel nanostructured membranes for desalination. The modification of both the surface and bulk properties of the ultrafiltration membranes by nanomaterials can improve the membrane performance and open up the possibility of new applications in addition to those for the current ultrafiltration membrane processes.