Recycled reverse osmosis membranes for forward osmosis technology

Contreras-Martínez, J. and García-Payo, M.C. and Arribas, P. and Rodríguez-Sáez, L. and Lejarazu-Larrañaga, A. and García-Calvo, E. and Khayet, M. (2021) Recycled reverse osmosis membranes for forward osmosis technology. Desalination, 519. p. 115312. ISSN 00119164

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Abstract

An alternative use of end-of-life reverse osmosis (RO) membranes is proposed for forward osmosis (FO) application as recycled FO (RFO) membranes and transformed recycled FO (TRFO) membranes. Different passive cleaning protocols in pilot plant and laboratory scale were followed using sodium hypochlorite (NaClO) at different concentrations and exposure time. The RFO with the best performance was selected for its transformation by interfacial polymerization (IP) technique to improve further the FO performance. Both the morphological structure and transport properties of the RFO and TRFO membranes were studied by means of different characterization techniques. Although the RFO membranes are suitable for FO, the TRFO membranes are more competitive. The highest FO water permeate fluxes (12.21 kg/m2h and 15.12 kg/m2h) were obtained for the membrane recycled applying the highest NaClO exposure dose applied in pilot plant (106 ppm·h) followed by IP of a thin polyamide layer. These permeate fluxes were better or at least comparable to commercial membranes used under the same FO conditions. The results indicated that it is possible to use discarded RO membranes in FO technology for wastewater treatment after adequate treatment procedures extending their lifetime and contributing to a circular economy and sustainability in membrane science and related materials.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Discarded reverse osmosis modules; Recycled membranes; Forward osmosis; Interfacial polymerization; Wastewater.
Subjects:	Q Science > QD Chemistry T Technology > T Technology (General) T Technology > TD Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering
Depositing User:	Users 646 not found.
Date Deposited:	22 Oct 2021 07:43
Last Modified:	22 Oct 2021 07:43
URI:	http://eprints.imdea-agua.org:13000/id/eprint/1234

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