End-of-Life Membranes: Challenges and Opportunities

It is estimated that Reverse Osmosis (RO) desalination will produce, by 2025, more than 2,000,000 end-of-life membranes annually worldwide. This review examines the implementation of circular economy principles in RO technology through a comprehensive analysis of the RO membrane life cycle (manufacturing, usage, and end-of-life management). Future RO design should incorporate a biobased composition (biopolymers, recycled materials, and green solvents), improve the durability of the membranes (fouling and chlorine resistance), and facilitate the recyclability of the modules. Moreover, proper membrane maintenance at the usage phase, attained through the implementation of feed pre-treatment, early fouling detection, and membrane cleaning methods can help extend the service time of RO elements. Currently, end-of-life membranes are dumped in landfills, which is contrary to the waste hierarchy. This review analyses up to now developed alternative valorisation routes of end-of-life RO membranes, including reuse, direct and indirect recycling, and energy recovery, placing a special focus on emerging indirect recycling strategies. Lastly, Life Cycle Assessment is presented as a holistic methodology to evaluate the environmental and economic burdens of membrane recycling strategies. According to the European Commission’s objectives set through the Green Deal, future perspectives indicate that end-of-life membrane valorisation strategies will keep gaining increasing interest in the upcoming years.

Membrane Filtration technique is being accepted worldwide as an environment friendly and energy efficient technique in Desalination Industry as compared to Thermal Desalination techniques. However, the performance of membranes which include permeate flux and rejection is affected by the membrane fouling. The properties of membrane and surface features such as porous structure, hydrophilicity/hydrophobicity charge, polymer characteristics, surface roughness determine the fouling potential of the membrane. The hydrophilic and smooth membrane surface is usually considered desirable in tackling membrane fouling issues. Therefore, many studies have focused on to enhance surface characteristics of membranes by surface coating with polymers and nanomaterials. Since, membrane coating is not done during fabrication of the most commercially available membranes, therefore, it is also important to determine the surface features of the commercially available membranes to investigate their membrane fouling potential. Thus, the objectives of this study were (1) to perform membrane surface characterization of commercial Reverse Osmosis (RO) and Nanofiltration (NF) membranes using techniques such as SEM, AFM, FTIR and XPS; (2) to measure hydrophilicity/hydrophobicity of commercial RO and NF membranes through water contact angle measurement using sessile drop method and (3) to measure the flux and percentage rejection of NF and RO membranes using Dead end filtration technique. Here, the characterization of membrane surface in terms of surface roughness, using SEM and AFM, showed that the commercial RO membrane had more ridge and valley structures and higher average surface roughness i.e. 71.24 nm as compared to NF membranes (6.63 nm). In addition, water contact angle measurements showed that the NF membrane was more hydrophilic as compared to RO membrane. The average contact angle found for RO membrane was 59.94°. On the other hand, it was observed that NF membrane is extremely hydrophilic in nature. Due to which, contact angle value was not obtained for most of the runs. The droplet could diffuse in less than 5 seconds. In addition, the dead-end filtration experiments showed that the RO membrane had much lower flux as compared to NF membrane. This can be associated with the pore structure of these membranes. Since, the NF membrane has porous structure, in oppose to RO membrane, the flux of the NF membrane is usually higher than the RO membranes. As the membrane surface roughness and hydrophobicity makes it more susceptible to the fouling leading to reduction in membrane flux and performance, it can be concluded from this study that there is a need for surface coating of RO membrane with suitable nanomaterials such as graphene oxide to improve its hydrophilicity and surface smoothness. This will eventually make the membrane more resistant to membrane fouling and will establish the use of membrane filtration technique in desalination industry in Qatar in the future. Microorganisms have been isolated from Gulf sea water, identified and differentiated and are being used to study the biofouling of RO and NF membranes, that would be coated to limit the fouling problems. Acknowledgement: This research was made possible by NPRP grant # [9-318-1-064] from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of Qatar Foundation). The findings achieved herein are solely the responsibility of the author[s].

Coupling phytoremediation of Pb-contaminated soil and biomass energy production: A comparative Life Cycle Assessment

Hybrid membrane system for desalination and wastewater treatment : Integrating forward osmosis and low pressure reverse osmosis

During the last decade, water reuse has been widely recognized in many regions of the world. Fouling of ceramic membranes, especially hydraulically irreversible fouling, is a critical aspect affecting the operational cost and energy consumption in water treatment plants. In addition, the reverse osmosis (RO) membranes, that are often used for water reuse plant, frequently face the problem of bio-fouling. The main objective of this thesis is to develop innovative applications of the ceramic ultra- and nanofiltration membranes for water reuse purpose. Improving RO pre-treatment using tight ceramic UF or ceramic NF To prevent the biofouling often relies on pre-treatment technology, since frequent chemical cleaning does not only increase the operational cost but also destructs the polyamide skin layer of RO membrane. A good RO pre-treatment should aim at both particulate removal to release clogging in the module, and organic carbon or nutrient limitation to release biofouling in the RO. Intense pre-treatment has been applied to alleviate the biofouling in RO membranes during wastewater reclamation. Whereas, current filtration-based pre-treatment processes cannot adequately prevent biofouling due to their poor removal of nutrients and organic carbon from feed water. The tight ceramic UF and ceramic NF membranes can potentially be deployed for RO pre-treatment in order to constrain the biofouling in RO by removing the organic carbon and phosphate (as nutrient). Theoretical research on the phosphate rejection by the charged tight ceramic UF was conducted, and the results have emphasized the importance of electrostatic interactions between the negatively charged membrane and the phosphate. The results indicate that the rejection of phosphate is dependent on the pH of the solutions and the results can be interpreted by Donnan exclusion and formation of an electrical double layer in the membrane pores. The greater phosphate rejection due to electrostatic repulsion results from a stronger overlapping of the electrical double layers in membrane pores. A Debye ratio (ratio of the Debye length to the pore radius) can be used to evaluate double layer overlapping in tight UF membranes. However, the membrane fouling caused by organic matter and cations can potentially influence the phosphate rejection by the tight ceramic UF. The phosphate rejection appeared to be linearly correlated to the surface charge of the organics in the feed waters. In addition, the biopolymers in WWTP effluent water organic matter (EfOM) can adsorb phosphate with the bridging of multivalent cations, which leads to higher phosphate rejection by the EfOM-fouled membranes than humics-fouled membranes. Sewer mining using ceramic nanofiltration Ceramic NF can be used for direct municipal sewage filtration aiming at energy, fresh water and nutrient recovery, so called sewer mining. Over 80% of organic carbon substrates and 90% of dissolved phosphate were rejected by a ceramic NF membrane (450 Da), but only 10% for ammonia. Concentration of the municipal sewage using ceramic NF increases the efficiency in the energy and nutrient recovery during the anaerobic digestion. The fouling on the ceramic NF membranes during sewage filtration can be suppressed by chemical cleaning with NaClO (0.1%) and HCl (0.1 mol L-1), while the cleaning of polymeric NF membranes is reportedly far more difficult. As such, sewer mining with ceramic NF is believed as an innovative and viable technology for energy, fresh water and nutrient recovery.

Prospective Life Cycle Assessment and economic analysis of direct recycling of end-of-life reverse osmosis membranes based on Geographic Information Systems

Membrane application in reverse osmosis (RO) membrane is getting more attention especially in producing drinking water. However, RO membrane faces challenges that reduces its performance such as its permeation flux, salt rejection, additional energy demand, lifetime decrease, extra pre-treatment process, cleaning and maintenance. The challenge is the formation of fouling. RO membrane fouling can happen inside or outside the membrane and the characteristics of membrane fouling differs from one type to other types, depending on the nature and location of membrane fouling. There are several types of RO fouling, which are Biofouling, Organic Fouling, Inorganic Fouling and Colloidal Fouling. The causes of RO membrane are different from one to another. The properties and materials of the solution entering RO membrane are important as it affects the type of fouling of RO membrane fouling. All of the RO membrane foulings need to be considered during membrane usage and demand solution to be controlled. In order to control the fouling in Reverse Osmosis membrane, there have been several control solutions discovered to the membrane fouling challenges. The control solutions are specified to each one of the fouling, in spite of wide applications for some of it. The control solutions are pre-treatment, which has many methods such as photo oxidation, coagulation, scale inhibitor, ion exchange resins, granular media and membrane treatment, membrane monitoring, membrane cleaning, surface modification, and material addition to membrane or novel membrane material. With various control solutions discovered, the RO membrane still faces fouling issue and is still demanding some more advanced applicable control solutions.

Enhancement of surface properties and performance of reverse osmosis membranes after surface modification: A review

Effect of membrane bioreactor solids retention time on reverse osmosis membrane fouling for wastewater reuse

The State of Qatar and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region are located in a hyper-arid area with no rivers, over-abstracted groundwater supply and limited rainfall. Consequently, with the discovery of oil and gas and the associated economic prosperity, the State of Qatar and the GCC region have relied on desalination of seawater from the Arabian Gulf. As of 2013, the GCC region held a 70% share of total global desalination capacity.Multi-Stage Flash (MSF) desalination technology has been the source of water supply in the State of Qatar and the GCC region for the past few decades due to the low cost of energy in these countries and the problems historically faced by Reverse Osmosis (RO) membrane processes in dealing wih the high salinity of the Arabian Gulf. MSF is a thermal process that distills water through stages based on high temperature and changing pressures. The systems suffer from high energy requirements and low recovery rates resulting in significant discharge of brine with elevated temperature to the ambient receiving water. RO on the other hand relies on applying a positive pressure to pass permeate through a fine polymer filter material against the osmotic pressure gradient. RO is widely adopted worldwide due to its lower energy consumption and increased product recovery. With recent developments the technology can cover the high salinity of the Arabian Gulf (40,000 mg/L to 55,000 mg/L total dissolved solids). Nevertheless, RO systems require extensive pretreatment to ensure the integrity of the membrane and to prevent blocking of the fine pores. This makes the process susceptible to surface water quality fluctuations such as during algal blooms and therefore its application in Qatar is still challenging due to the shallow and enclosed nature of the Arabian Gulf.Subsurface intake processes for RO have the potential to reduce the effects of fluctuations in source water quality and reduce the energy intensity of the process, since they provide natural filtration of the source water and simplify the extensive pretreatment requirements necessary to protect the RO membranes. However, significant tradeoffs occur by using subsurface intakes. For instance, intake pumping may be increased to overcome the additional headloss through the intake media while the construction phase also involves increased civil works. This research investigates the environmental impacts associated with the operation phase of RO systems using both open intake and beach well intake systems theoretically located in the State of Qatar, since operational phase impacts typically comprise most of the environmental loads in cradle-to-grave assessments.The study utilizes Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology to assess a wide range of effects from the systems. The ReCiPe lifecycle impact indicator approach is utilized with mid-point impact indicators including climate change, marine eutrophication, terrestial acidification, photochemical oxidant formation, particulate matter formation, marine ecotoxicity, water depletion, mineral resource depletion and fossil fuel depletion. The RO system, its pretreatment and intake will be sized and modelled for a desalinated water output of 100,000 m3/d using a combination of fundamental process equations and commercially available software. The results will show a clear direction from an environmental perspective on which type of intake system Qatar should consider if implementing seawater RO as a preferred desalination technique.

Energy consumption and recovery in reverse osmosis

Review and meta-analysis of 82 studies on end-of-life management methods for source separated organics

Evaluation of e-waste management systems in Malaysia using life cycle assessment and material flow analysis

Surface chemical heterogeneity of polyamide RO membranes: Measurements and implications

A review on antifouling polyamide reverse osmosis membrane for seawater desalination.