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Wastewater contains significant amounts of nitrogen that can be recovered and valorized as fertilizers and chemicals. This study presents a new membrane electrode coupled with microbial electrolysis that demonstrates very efficient ammonia recovery from synthetic centrate. The process utilizes the electrical potential across electrodes to drive NH ions toward the hydrophilic nickel top layer on a gas-stripping membrane cathode, which takes advantage of surface pH increase to realize spontaneous NH production and separation. Compared with a control configuration with conventionally separated electrode and hydrophobic membrane, the integrated membrane electrode showed 40% higher NH-N recovery rate (36.2 ± 1.2 gNH-N/m/d) and 11% higher current density. The energy consumption was 1.61 ± 0.03 kWh/kgNH-N, which was 20% lower than the control and 70-90% more efficient than competing electrochemical nitrogen recovery processes (5-12 kWh/kgNH-N). Besides, the negative potential on membrane electrode repelled negatively charged organics and microbes thus reduced fouling. In addition to describing the system's performance, we explored the underlying mechanisms governing the reactions, which confirmed the viability of this process for efficient wastewater-ammonia recovery. Furthermore, the nickel-based membrane electrode showed excellent water entry pressure (∼41 kPa) without leakage, which was much higher than that of PTFE/PDMS-based cathodes (∼1.8 kPa). The membrane electrode also showed superb flexibility (180° bend) and can be easily fabricated at low cost (<20 $/m).

Current membrane distillation (MD) is challenged by the inefficiency of water thermal separation from dissolved solutes, controlled by membrane porosity and thermal conductivity. Existing petroleum-derived polymeric membranes face major development barriers. Here, we demonstrate a first robust MD membrane directly fabricated from sustainable wood material. The hydrophobic nanowood membrane had high porosity (89 ± 3%) and hierarchical pore structure with a wide pore size distribution of crystalline cellulose nanofibrils and xylem vessels and lumina (channels) that facilitate water vapor transportation. The thermal conductivity was extremely low in the transverse direction, which reduces conductive heat transport. However, high thermal conductivity along the fiber enables efficient thermal dissipation along the axial direction. As a result, the membrane demonstrated excellent intrinsic vapor permeability (1.44 ± 0.09 kg m−1 K−1 s−1 Pa−1) and thermal efficiency (~70% at 60°C). The properties of thermal efficiency, water flux, scalability, and sustainability make nanowood highly desirable for MD applications.

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