Research progress and trends on state-of-the-art membrane technologies in textile wastewater treatment

The textile industries hold an important role in the world, while a large amount of textile wastewater is generated every year. It is important to develop effective technologies for textile wastewater treatment, and membrane technologies showed great promising applications in this field. This review focused on membrane technologies for the treatment of textile wastewater. Firstly, the quantity and chemical composition of textile wastewater were discussed. The change in research hotspot and co-occurrence analysis from 2000 to 2021 were analyzed using bibliometric tools. Following this, the removals of primary pollutants using typical membrane technologies were compared. Then, current research on state-of-the-art membrane technologies for textile wastewater treatment was systematically evaluated. The performance of a range of membranes is evaluated, and the primary characteristics and influencing factors of these technologies were discussed. In terms of factors that reduce treatment efficiency, membrane fouling has the largest and broadest impact. This paper discussed mitigation measures for membrane fouling, such as membrane modification and addition of pretreatment. Performance optimization and energy consumption reduction measures for the combinations of multiple membrane processes were analyzed. Membrane modification, process optimization, and the use of clean energy were proposed as the future research directions of membrane processes in textile wastewater treatment.