Recent Aspects in Membrane Separation for Oil/Water Emulsion

Abstract Oily wastewater is generated by various industries in extraordinary growing volumes, such as oil refineries, petrochemicals, metallurgical, food & beverages, and dairy industries, which need oil removal for safe discharge to the environment. Lower cost of production with high oil removal and efficient performance compared to classical methods for treating oil‐water emulsions attributed to the alleviation of operation. That emphasizes membrane modification to enhance wettability, hydrophilicity with the antifouling property such as membranes dealing with tiny oil emulsions to be the key parameters to improve its performance. These challenges associated with membrane filtration are highlighted to quantify and how to mitigate membrane fouling. This review underlines the current and future status of commercial ultrafiltration membranes. These membranes seem to be the most cost‐effective, applied technology for oil‐water emulsion; moreover, different strategies and pathways for research areas to be covered are discussed.