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Membrane and Membrane-Based Hybrid Processes for Water Treatment

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A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Wastewater Treatment and Reuse".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2019) | Viewed by 21153

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Mohtada Sadrzadeh

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Guest Editor

Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2R3, Canada
Interests: membrane; water and gas treatment
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Prof. Dr. Toraj Mohammadi

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST), Tehran, Iran
Interests: separation processes; water and gas treatment; membranes; membrane fabrication; nanocomposite membranes; nanofiltration; reverse osmosis; ultrafiltration; microfiltration; pervaporation; gas separation; membrane distillation; polymer and zeolite membranes

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Demand for freshwater has significantly increased over the past decade with the exponential growth of the world’s population and rapid industrialization. Nowadays, about one-fifth of the world’s population suffer from severe water shortage and limited access to clean water. The lack of freshwater has therefore intensified efforts to upgrade the available water treatment processes and to develop advanced techniques to treat, purify, recycle and reuse water sustainably. Membrane separation processes have become one of the fastest emerging technologies for desalination and water treatment due to their distinct advantages over traditional methods such as adsorption, coagulation, biological treatment, and oxidation. In particular, membrane processes provide lower operating costs, compact design and high product quality. However, high susceptibility of membranes to fouling, restricts the development of sustainable and energy-efficient membrane processes for water treatment. Given that, much research and development have been recently undertaken to develop either high-performance antifouling membranes or membrane-based hybrid processes. Enhanced antifouling properties were typically achieved via membrane surface modification techniques including: (i) photo- and redox-initiated grafting of hydrophilic polymers; (ii) plasma treatment; (iii) physical coating of a layer of hydrophilic polymers on the surface; and (iv) applying functional nanomaterials to synthesize hybrid polymer/inorganic membranes. In addition, combining the membrane process with conventional well-known water treatment techniques, such as membrane bioreactors (MBR), ceramic ultrafiltration (UF)/reverse osmosis (RO), micellar enhanced UF (MEUF), electrocoagulation/MF, and activated carbon/membrane, aimed to reduce energy consumption, operating costs, final effluent concentration and to overcome concerns related to water treatment in harsh conditions. This Special Issue focuses on the attempts that have been devoted to the development of advanced membrane materials and membrane-based hybrid processes to improve water and energy efficiency in water treatment processes.

Prof. Dr. Mohtada Sadrzadeh
Prof. Dr. Toraj Mohammadi
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 submissions that pass pre-check are 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.

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 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

membrane
membrane-based hybrid processes
water treatment
fouling-resistant membranes
nanocomposite membranes
surface modification
reverse osmosis
nanofiltration
ultrafiltration
microfiltration

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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14 pages, 2961 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Cu-BTC Metal−Organic Framework Modified Membranes for Landfill Leachate Treatment

by Mahfar Mazani, Sadegh Aghapour Aktij, Ahmad Rahimpour and Naser Tavajohi Hassan Kiadeh

Water 2020, 12(1), 91; https://doi.org/10.3390/w12010091 - 26 Dec 2019

Cited by 27 | Viewed by 5698

Abstract

In this study, Cu-BTC (copper(II) benzene-1,3,5-tricarboxylate) metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) were incorporated into the structure of polysulfone (PSf) ultrafiltration (UF) membranes to improve the membrane performance for landfill leachate treatment, whereby different concentrations of Cu-BTC (0.5, 1, 1.5, 2 wt%) were added to the PSf casting solution. The successful incorporation of Cu-BTC MOFs into the modified membranes was investigated by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray (EDX). The Cu-BTC-modified PSf membranes showed higher performance in terms of flux and rejection, as compared to the neat PSf membrane. For example, the pure water flux (PWF) of neat membrane increased from 111 to 194 L/m²h (LMH) by loading 2 wt% Cu-BTC into the membrane structure, indicating 74% improvement in PWF. Furthermore, the flux of this membrane during filtration of landfill leachate increased up to 15 LMH, which indicated 50% improvement in permeability, as compared to the neat membrane. Finally, the modified membranes showed reasonable antifouling and anti-biofouling properties than the blank membrane. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Membrane and Membrane-Based Hybrid Processes for Water Treatment)

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12 pages, 3600 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Integrated Coagulation-Membrane Processes with Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) Configuration for the Treatment of Oil Sands Produced Water

by Farshad Mohammadtabar, Behnam Khorshidi, Armin Hayatbakhsh and Mohtada Sadrzadeh

Water 2019, 11(7), 1348; https://doi.org/10.3390/w11071348 - 29 Jun 2019

Cited by 14 | Viewed by 4085

Abstract

This study explores the feasibility of implementing five hybrid coagulation-membrane processes for the treatment of the boiler blow-down (BBD) water from an oil sands steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) operation. The processes involved (1) direct nanofiltration (NF) of the BBD water, (2) pre-treatment of the NF retentate using ion exchanger regeneration wastewater (IERW) as a chemical coagulant followed by NF, (3) pre-treatment of BBD water using IERW followed by NF, (4) dual pre-treatment of BBD water using IERW and soda ash (sodium carbonate, Na₂CO₃) followed by NF, and (5) forward osmosis (FO) treatment of the BBD water using IERW as a draw solution followed by NF treatment of diluted draw solution. These scenarios were compared based on total flux decline ratio (DR_t), flux recovery ratio (FRR), and total dissolved solids (TDS) removal over the final NF treatment to suggest an efficient treatment technique to avoid an undesired increase in the capital and operating expenses. It was found that process-1 provided the highest selectivity toward dissolved solids (80%) with a flux decline and recovery ration of 89.6% and 97.4%, respectively. Considering the permeation flux, process-4 exhibited the lowest flux decline (86.1%) and highest recovery ratio (97.5%) compared to other processes, proving the successful role of soda ash softening, as a chemical pretreatment method, in improving the performance of membrane filtration. Process-2 presented a mediocre performance with DRt, FRR, and TDS rejection of 93.3%, 97.3%, and 74%, respectively. Finally, process-3 and process-5 showed the lowest performance among all the scenarios with low flux recovery and low permeability, respectively. In addition, process-3 was expected to be cost-efficient since it only uses an on-site generated waste as a coagulant for the chemical pretreatment of the membrane filtration unit. The optimum scenario was proposed to be the two-stage membrane process, with direct NF of BBD followed by the post-treatment of the retentate via a hybrid chemical conditioning using IERW and soda ash softening, followed by a second NF. Overall, this integrated process offered a highly efficient mean with a zero liquid discharge (ZLD) system for the treatment of high pH wastewaters into an uncontaminated stream for the boilers. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Membrane and Membrane-Based Hybrid Processes for Water Treatment)

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15 pages, 2208 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An Autopsy Study of a Fouled Reverse Osmosis Membrane Used for Ultrapure Water Production

by Hojung Rho, Kangmin Chon and Jaeweon Cho

Water 2019, 11(6), 1116; https://doi.org/10.3390/w11061116 - 28 May 2019

Cited by 22 | Viewed by 4024

Abstract

This study investigated the fouling and cleaning behaviors of reverse osmosis (RO) membranes in a lab–scale ultrapure water (UPW) production system via membrane autopsies and characterization of dissolved organic matter (DOM) and membrane foulants. Most of DOM were effectively removed by the MFC filter, with the exception of the peak at 150 Da. The RO membranes were effective in reducing conductivity, DOM, total nitrogen (TN), and ultraviolet A (UVA_254nm) concentration; the polishing stage using IER filter resulted in ultra-trace levels of all these parameters required for semiconductor manufacturing (> 18.2 ΩM). The quantity of the desorbed RO membrane foulants, in terms of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), varied considerably depending on the type of desorbing agents: 0.1 N NaCl (65.12 mgC m⁻²) > 0.1 N NaOH (46.14 mgC m⁻²) > deionized water (25.39 mgC m⁻²) > 0.1 N HCl (15.95 mgC m⁻²). The high cleaning efficiency of the salt solution (0.1 N NaCl) was attributed to the efficient desorption of hydrophilic DOM foulants from the RO membrane surfaces. These results demonstrate that the salt cleaning may provide a promising option to recover the performance of the RO membranes fouled primarily by hydrophilic DOM fractions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Membrane and Membrane-Based Hybrid Processes for Water Treatment)

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Review

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37 pages, 7043 KiB

Open AccessReview

Recent Progresses of Forward Osmosis Membranes Formulation and Design for Wastewater Treatment

by Pei Sean Goh, Ahmad Fauzi Ismail, Be Cheer Ng and Mohd Sohaimi Abdullah

Water 2019, 11(10), 2043; https://doi.org/10.3390/w11102043 - 29 Sep 2019

Cited by 60 | Viewed by 6727

Abstract

Production of potable water or reclaimed water with higher quality are in demand to address water scarcity issues as well as to meet the expectation of stringent water quality standards. Forward osmosis (FO) provides a highly promising platform for energy-efficient membrane-based separation technology. This emerging technology has been recognized as a potential and cost-competitive alternative for many conventional wastewater treatment technologies. Motivated by its advantages over existing wastewater treatment technologies, the interest of applying FO technology for wastewater treatment has increased significantly in recent years. This article focuses on the recent developments and innovations in FO for wastewater treatment. An overview of the potential of FO in various wastewater treatment application will be first presented. The contemporary strategies used in membrane designs and fabrications as well as the efforts made to address membrane fouling are comprehensively reviewed. Finally, the challenges and future outlook of FO for wastewater treatment are highlighted. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Membrane and Membrane-Based Hybrid Processes for Water Treatment)

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