Organic-Inorganic Hybrid Membranes for Agricultural Wastewater Treatment

Abstract

The global agricultural sector consumes a large amount of fresh water for irrigation. Less than half of agricultural wastewater is properly treated before discharging to environment or recycling. Treatment of agricultural wastewater for reuse in irrigation can alleviate burden on water resources as well as protect the environment from detrimental effects caused by various organics, pesticides, and soluble ions in the wastewater stream. This work reviews several current membrane technologies that are applied at removing the pollutants in agricultural wastewater. Subsequently, several strategies to further improve membranes' performance are highlighted. The advancement of materials science at the nanometer scale can assist the fabrication of membranes with higher selectivity of pollutant removal, higher permeate flux, and lower membrane fouling.