Abstract
The application of membrane technologies for wastewater treatment to recover water and nutrients from different types of wastewater can be an effective strategy to mitigate the water shortage and provide resource recovery for sustainable development of industrialisation and urbanisation. Forward osmosis (FO), driven by the osmotic pressure difference between solutions divided by a semi-permeable membrane, has been recognised as a potential energy-efficient filtration process with a low tendency for fouling and a strong ability to filtrate highly polluted wastewater. The application of FO for wastewater treatment has received significant attention in research and attracted technological effort in recent years. In this review, we review the state-of-the-art application of FO technology for sewage concentration and wastewater treatment both as an independent treatment process and in combination with other treatment processes. We also provide an outlook of the future prospects and recommendations for the improvement of membrane performance, fouling control and system optimisation from the perspectives of membrane materials, operating condition optimisation, draw solution selection, and multiple technologies combination.
Highlights
Freshwater is one of the scarcest resources in the world, and water shortage has become a serious problem with the growth of population and urbanisation [1,2]
We aim to provide a concise review of the latest development of applying Forward osmosis (FO) technology for sewage concentration and wastewater treatment and focus on the interaction among membrane materials, feed solution properties, draw solution properties, and system operating conditions during the application
The results showed that the online air-water washing exhibited an effective surface cleaning performance (Figure 2b), and the cake layer on the FO membrane surface could be peeled off, indicating the good fouling resistance of the FO process
Summary
Freshwater is one of the scarcest resources in the world, and water shortage has become a serious problem with the growth of population and urbanisation [1,2]. In order to mitigate the negative impact of water shortage, water mining from wastewater was proposed by Lutchmiah et al [3] In this concept, wastewater is a resource for water, nutrients, and energy [3,4]. NF and RO processes still face challenges, such as high energy requirements, low water recovery rates, and serious membrane fouling [13,14]. Challenges including membrane fouling, internal/external concentration polarisation, salt accumulation in the feed solution, and system operational condition optimisation still exist in FO technology. We aim to provide a concise review of the latest development of applying FO technology for sewage concentration and wastewater treatment and focus on the interaction among membrane materials, feed solution properties, draw solution properties, and system operating conditions during the application. Current challenges and recommendations for the improvement of FO systems, fouling control, and system design are discussed
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