Abstract

The explosion of both academic and industrial interest in inorganic/organic hybrid materials and membranes over the past decade primarily arised from their practical and potential applications in such fields as chemical separation, electrochemical sensing, and fuel cells. In view of their significance to the academia and industry, this review gave a brief summary on the recent patents reporting the preparation and application of hybrid materials and membranes. The focus was on the novel synthetic methodologies and potential applications of hybrid materials and the corresponding hybrid charged membranes. The current and future developments were also discussed.

Keywords: Hybrid materials, hybrid membranes, zwitterionic, charge-mosaic, desalination, sol-gel, piezodialysis