In order to address the increasing demand for fresh water due to accelerated social and economic growth in the world, water treatment technologies, such as desalination, have been rapidly developed in attempts to safeguard water security. Electromembrane desalination processes, such as electrodialysis and membrane capacitive deionization, belong to a category of desalination technologies, which involve the removal of ions from ionic solutions with the use of electrically charged membranes termed ion exchange membranes. The challenges associated with ion exchange membranes have drawn the attention of many researchers, who have investigated various approaches to enhance their properties. The incorporation of nanomaterials is one of the popular approaches employed. Much research on nanomaterials incorporated ion exchange membranes was conducted for the purpose of fuel cell applications rather than electromembrane desalination. This review reports on the advances in nanomaterials incorporated ion exchange membranes applicable to desalination. The nanomaterials employed in ion exchange membranes fabrication include carbon nanotubes, graphene-based nanomaterials, silica, titanium (IV) oxide, aluminum oxide, zeolite, iron (II, III) oxide, zinc oxide, and silver. The aims of this article are to provide a snap shot of the current status of nanomaterials incorporation in ion exchange membranes, to assess the status of nanomaterials-facilitated ion exchange membranes research for electromembrane desalination, and to stimulate progress in this area.

为了解决由于世界上社会和经济的加速增长而引起的对淡水的日益增长的需求，诸如盐水淡化的水处理技术已经迅速发展，以试图维护水的安全。电膜脱盐工艺（例如电渗析和膜电容去离子）属于一类脱盐技术，该技术涉及使用称为离子交换膜的带电膜从离子溶液中去除离子。与离子交换膜相关的挑战吸引了许多研究人员的注意力，他们研究了各种增强其性能的方法。纳米材料的掺入是所采用的流行方法之一。出于离子燃料膜应用而不是电膜脱盐的目的，对掺有离子交换膜的纳米材料进行了大量研究。这篇综述报道了掺入适用于脱盐的离子交换膜的纳米材料的进展。用于离子交换膜制造的纳米材料包括碳纳米管，基于石墨烯的纳米材料，二氧化硅，氧化钛（IV），氧化铝，沸石，氧化铁（II，III），氧化锌和银。本文的目的是提供离子交换膜中掺入纳米材料的当前状况的快照，以评估纳米材料促进的离子膜在电膜脱盐方面的研究现状，并刺激该领域的发展。