Abstract
Nowadays the world is facing vulnerability problems related to food, energy and water demands. The challenges in those subsystems are intertwined and thus require inter-discipline approaches to address them. Bioresources offer promising solutions of the dilemma. Microalgae biomass is expected to become a superfood and a favorable energy feedstock and assist in supplying clean water and treat wastewater. Efficient mass production of microalgae, both during upstream and downstream processes, is thus a key process for providing high quality and affordable microalgae biomass. This paper covers recent progress in microalgae harvesting and dewatering by using osmotic driven membrane process, i.e., forward osmosis. Critical factors during forward osmosis process for microalgae harvesting and dewatering are discussed. Finally, perspective on further research directions and implementation scenarios of the forward osmosis are also provided.
Highlights
Nowadays, many countries around the world have immense concerns about forthcoming uncertainty about the increasing demands of food, energy and clean freshwater
Microalgae have been seen as species which might contribute to the nexus, especially in producing food, being utilized as energy feedstocks or assisting in providing clean water, or even clean air
Most forward osmosis (FO) membranes are made from cellulose triacetate and polyamide/polysulfone materials, which traditionally synthesized via phase inversion process use toxic or aggressive organic solvents, e.g., hexane, acetone, dimethylformamide, dimethylsulfoxide, tetrahydrofuran or n-methyl-2-pyrrolidone
Summary
Many countries around the world have immense concerns about forthcoming uncertainty about the increasing demands of food, energy and clean freshwater. Microalgae have been seen as species which might contribute to the nexus, especially in producing food, being utilized as energy feedstocks or assisting in providing clean water, or even clean air. The importance of microalgae in food-energy-water nexus and the advances of membrane-based microalgae harvesting and dewatering were scrutinized and reviewed, with the focus on forward osmosis (FO) process. Combination of extraction of lipid (converted into biodiesel), protein (for functional food) and carbohydrates (as bioethanol precursor), followed by anaerobic digestion process to utilize the biomass residue could enhance the overall efficiency of the microalgae biomass utilization [26]. The utilization of microalgae biomass as the food sources and the energy feedstock promote land saving for agricultural crops production. RO processes as a nature and engineered osmotic driven membrane processes
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