Coutinho de Paula Eduardo, Amaral Míriam Cristina Santos
1 Federal University of Itajubá, Brazil.
2 Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil.
Waste Manag Res. 2017 May;35(5):456-470. doi: 10.1177/0734242X16684383. Epub 2017 Jan 18.
The reverse osmosis (RO) technology for desalination and demineralization serves the global water crisis context, both technically and economically, and its market is growing. However, RO membranes have a limited life-cycle and are often disposed of in landfills. The impacts caused by the disposal of thousands of tonnes per annum of RO membranes have grown dramatically around the world. Waste prevention should have a high priority and take effect before the end-of-life phase of a product is reached. In this review, a summary is presented of the main advances in the performance of the RO technology and the membrane lifespan. Afterwards, this paper reviews the most important relevant literature and summarizes the key findings of the research on reusing and recycling the discarded modules for the purpose of extending the life-cycle of the RO membranes. In addtion, there are some recent researches that indicated recycling RO membranes for use by the microfiltration or ultrafiltration separation processes is a promising solution to the disposal problem. However, there are many gaps and differences in procedures and results. This article also discusses and brings to light key parameters involved and controversies about oxidative treatment of discarded RO membranes.
用于海水淡化和脱盐的反渗透（RO）技术在技术和经济上都有助于应对全球水危机，其市场也在不断增长。然而，RO膜的生命周期有限，通常被丢弃在垃圾填埋场。每年全球范围内数千吨RO膜的处置所造成的影响急剧增加。废物预防应具有高度优先性，并在产品进入报废阶段之前发挥作用。在本综述中，总结了RO技术性能和膜寿命的主要进展。之后，本文回顾了最重要的相关文献，并总结了关于为延长RO膜的生命周期而对废弃模块进行再利用和回收研究的关键发现。此外，最近的一些研究表明，将回收的RO膜用于微滤或超滤分离过程是解决处置问题的一个有前景的解决方案。然而，在程序和结果方面存在许多差距和差异。本文还讨论并揭示了废弃RO膜氧化处理所涉及的关键参数和争议。
