The “5th International Scientific Conference on Pervaporation, Vapour Pervaporation and Membrane Distillation” has been held in June 2017 in Torun, Poland. This event has been combined with the “2nd Workshop on ABE Fermentation and Recovery” which was very fruitful as these membrane processes are promising techniques for a cost- and energy-efficient recovery of solvents from the ABE fermentation broth. Highly renowned personalities within the membrane society have been present as speakers like Dr Richard Baker, Prof. Dr Vladimir Volkov, Prof. Dr Wojciech Kujawski and Dr Erin Johnson.

The industry was also present, amongst others Dr Martin Wolf and Dr Rob de Lange from PERVATECH BV presented the company portfolio. Around 50 persons attended the conference, mostly from universities and research centres but also from various companies. A big share of presentations dealt with the recovery and enrichment of ABE components and other alcohols. Other topics covered hydrophilic dehydration of different feed solutions and of course the synthesis and characterisation of novel high-performance membrane materials. It has been concluded that membrane separation techniques, especially pervaporation and vapour permeation, will benefit from increasing market shares and a broadening field of applications in the near future.

The 6th conference on the topic will take place in July 2019 in Gdansk, Poland.