Combined and Hybrid Adsorbents: Fundamentals and Applications

Adsorption is a separation process playing a fundamental role in several industrial areas, being used in both purification and bulk separations. The adsorbent used is the main parameter controlling the effectiveness of the process. Emerging new separations and the improvement of existing ones constitute the driving force for the development of new adsorbents with improved adsorbing properties. With this objective, recent research directions include the development of hybrid organic-inorganic and combined adsorbents. These Combined and Hybrid Adsorbents have progressively found their place, gaining importance for adsorptive applications and, consequently, for economy. They encompass significant scientific advances, pointing to the development of some directions of modern technology in the near future. This is confirmed by the impressive growth of the number of scientific publications dedicated to the subject in the last few years. The progresses in the development of these materials, the increased environmental and terrorism concerns, the needs for the integration between science and technology and the new analytical techniques available, enabling the complete characterization of these new materials, led us to the organization of a Research Workshop, aiming at making an up-to-date review of the latest achievements and an exchange of ideas between people working in several fields of this research area.