Hollow fibre membranes for wastewater treatment and resource recovery

In order to support environmentally sustainable development goal and offset the high cost of wastewater treatment, the wastewater should be viewed as a resource not only for clean water but also for other valuable resources. Others than conventional pressure-driven membrane system, forward osmosis (FO), membrane bioreactors (MBR), membrane distillation (MD) are also regarded as enablers to fulfil these requirements. This chapter assesses the working principles of hollow fibre membrane system for wastewater treatment applications that allow simultaneous recovery of clean water, energy, and nutrients from wastewater. More specifically, it provides an overview of hollow fibre membranes fabrication and membrane systems. Then, various application of hollow fibre membranes for wastewater treatment and resource recovery are highlighted. The key challenges faced by the hollow fibre membrane system are presented and recent research to enhance the performances of hollow fibre membranes with regard to flux, stability, and recovery factors are discussed.