Current advances in membrane technologies for saline wastewater treatment: A comprehensive review

The saline wastewater from various sources including agriculture and industrial activities, appears to have high salt concentration, organic content and other pollutants which can harm the environment. Thus, saline wastewater treatment has become one of the major concerns in many countries. Membrane technology offers great potential in saline wastewater treatment due to its high permeate quality, flexibility, and desalination capability. This paper highlights the current development in various types of membrane processes such as pressure driven-based membranes, forward osmosis, membrane distillation, electrodialysis and membrane bioreactor, either as a stand-alone or integrated process for saline wastewater treatment. The membranes performance in terms of water reclamation as well as resource recovery is discussed. Besides, the membrane fouling issue is highlighted, and the efficiency of various fouling mitigation strategies when dealing with real/challenging saline wastewater are reviewed. Finally, the future challenges and outlook in the context of membrane application for saline wastewater treatment are discussed.