Abstract
Manure and digestate liquid fractions are nutrient-rich effluents that can be fractionated and concentrated using membranes. However, these membranes tend to foul due to organic matter, solids, colloids, and inorganic compounds including calcium, ammonium, sodium, sulfur, potassium, phosphorus, and magnesium contained in the feed. This review paper is intended as a theoretical and practical tool for the decision-making process during design of membrane-based systems aiming at processing manure liquid fractions. Firstly, this review paper gives an overview of the main physico-chemical characteristics of manure and digestates. Furthermore, solid-liquid separation technologies are described and the complexity of the physico-chemical variables affecting the separation process is discussed. The main factors influencing membrane fouling mechanisms, morphology and characteristics are described, as well as techniques covering membrane inspection and foulant analysis. Secondly, the effects of the feed characteristics, membrane operating conditions (pressure, cross-flow velocity, temperature), pH, flocculation-coagulation and membrane cleaning on fouling and membrane performance are presented. Finally, a summary of techniques for specific recovery of ammonia-nitrogen, phosphorus and removal of heavy metals for farm effluents is also presented.
Highlights
Animal manure was defined by Shobert and Maguire as the solid, semisolid, and liquid by-product generated by animals grown to produce meat, milk, eggs, and other agricultural products for human use and consumption [1]
MF and UF membranes perform as very efficient solid-liquid separators that can reject nutrients associated with particles such as phosphorus [33,34], whereas
This study further showed that foulants were adsorbed stronger to the PS membrane surface than to polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membrane surface
Summary
Animal manure was defined by Shobert and Maguire as the solid, semisolid, and liquid by-product generated by animals grown to produce meat, milk, eggs, and other agricultural products for human use and consumption [1]. Membrane technologies, including microfiltration (MF), ultrafiltration (UF), nanofiltration (NF) and reverse osmosis (RO), are extensively used for water and wastewater treatment and have been used before for separation of animal waste sources. Alternative technologies such as forward osmosis (FO), electrodialysis (ED) and membrane distillation (MD) have raised attention for recovery of nutrients from farm effluents [19,20,23,24,25,26,27,28,29]. MF and UF membranes perform as very efficient solid-liquid separators that can reject nutrients associated with particles such as phosphorus [33,34], whereas. This review guides the reader in understanding the application of membrane technology to farm effluents, considering opportunities and challenges
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