Special Issue "Membrane Technologies and Water Treatment"
A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Wastewater Treatment and Reuse".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 January 2021.
Special Issue Editors

Interests: water treatment, membrane technologies, membrane bioreactor, wastewater reclamation and reuse, ultrafiltration

Guest Editor
Interests: water treatment, water pollution, wastewater reclamation and reuse, membrane technologies
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
In order to satisfy the growing demand for water in a framework defined by the global climate change, increasing urbanization, and population growth, it has been necessary to use membrane technologies, which enable the treatment of poor-quality water sources such as wastewater, seawater, brackish, or contaminated natural waters.
The application of reverse osmosis, electrodialysis, or nanofiltration membranes in sea and brackish water desalination, effluents remediation, and pollution removal are clear examples of the continuous and progressive innovation exhibited during membrane technologies evolution. The remarkable development experienced by membrane bioreactors in the last 15 years, due to its high competitiveness and versatility, has gone hand-in-hand with the increasingly demanding regulations regarding the quality of recycled or reused water. The incorporation of membranes in processes of recovery of resources such as nutrients and organic matter present in wastewater, in harmony with the principles of the circular economy that will guide future wastewater treatment facilities, is an example of the possibilities of the future development of membrane technologies in the water sector.
One of the great challenges that the development and expansion of membrane technologies must address is to seek their sustainability through the design of materials with less tendency to fouling; to improve their capacity to retain emerging contaminants; and to develop strategies to control fouling and prolong the life of the membranes minimizing chemicals and energy, while considering life-cycle assessment focused on minimizing environmental impacts.
This "Membrane Technologies and Water Treatment" Special Issue will bring together articles on new developments in the manufacture and application of membranes in water treatment processes. The Special Issue is requesting articles on all aspects of membranes, including manuscripts on membrane fouling and control strategies, new materials, sustainable designs, on-line monitoring, fouling characterization and modeling, and new membrane processes oriented towards global sustainable developments and membrane applications.
Dr. Luisa Vera
Dr. Luis E. Rodríguez-Gómez
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Water is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- water reclamation
- water reuse
- water recycling
- membrane fouling
- nutrients recovery
- membrane photobioreactor
- membrane bioreactor
- shear stress
- sustainability
Planned Papers
The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.
Title: Nutrients enrichment and process repercussions in hybrid osmotic microfiltration membrane bioreactor (HOM-MBR): A guideline for FO membrane development
Authors: Khum Gurunga,b*, Morten Lykkegaard Christensenc, Mika Mänttärib, Mohamed Chaker Ncibia, Mika Sillanpääa,d, Mads Koustrup Jørgensenc*
Affiliation: aDepartment of Green Chemistry, School of Engineering Science, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Sammonkatu 12, FI-50130 Mikkeli, Finland. bLaboratory of Separation Technology, Lappeenranta University of Technology, P.O. Box 20, FI-53851 Lappeenranta, Finland. cDepartment of Chemistry and Bioscience, Aalborg University, Fredriks Bajers Vej 7 H, DK-9220 Aalborg Øst, Denmark. dDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Florida International University, Miami, FL-33174, USA. * Corresponding author. Phone: +45 40828310 E-mail: [email protected]
Abstract: The effects of reverse diffusion of salts through a forward osmosis (FO) membrane was studied in the emerging MF-OMBR system to treat and simultaneously concentrate nutrients from wastewater. The system was operated at different draw solution concentrations, leading to varying salinity conditions. A relatively low, yet stable, FO flux was observed regardless of increasing DS conductivities from 10 to 50 mS cm-1. A substantial increase in the sludge conductivity from 5.7 to 19.8 mS cm-1 was observed during operation. Batch TMP-step experiments showed decline in sludge filtrerbility with increasing salinity buildup in sludge during operation due to deflocculation and associated release of protein and carbohydrate SMP. Mathematical simulations showed that accumulation of TDS could mainly be attributed to reverse flux of salts from the draw solution rather than by enrichment of incoming nutrients if FO membrane’s salt permeability was high and water permeability low. Ideally, salt diffusivity should be below 0.010 LMH and water permeability above 0.1 LMH bar-1 to ensure enrichment of nutrients while reducing sludge osmotic pressure, microbial inactivation, sludge deflocculation and membrane fouling.