Fouling prevention, preparing for re-use and membrane recycling. Towards circular economy in RO desalination

• Circular economy can revolutionize membrane industry by designing recyclable modules.
• Antifouling membranes are based on higher hydrophilicity and less roughness.
• Pretreatment and cleaning are tailored processes in continuous research development.
• Near future discarded membrane management may include recycling and reuse.
• Sustainability assessment is necessary to decide other management alternatives.

Reverse osmosis (RO) is the most employed technology for water desalination. Energy consumption and membrane fouling represent some of the major concerns in membrane technology because they increase the costs associated with treated water. Membrane lifespan is mainly correlated to the quality of the water and the operation condition and it is estimated that often membrane lifespan is 5 to 10 years. Remarkable advances have been made improving the reverse osmosis desalination by integrating pretreatment and cleaning processes. Attending to the membrane active layer, substantial research efforts have been conducted in preparing new antifouling RO membranes to i) enhance antifouling properties, ii) obtain high recovery flux and iii) have low energy requirements. However, scarce research has been detected in literature regarding end-of-life membrane management. This review summarizes the most representative research activities conducted to prevent membrane fouling. In addition, it highlights alternative routes to discarded end-of-life-membranes in order to prevent the uncontrolled disposal of fouled membranes in landfills. In this way, this review aims at summarizing research efforts found in literature in order to approach a more circular economy society, covering the whole life cycle of RO membranes: from the new development of antifouling membranes to the membrane waste management.

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