TY - JOUR
T1 - Evaluating fertilizer-drawn forward osmosis performance in treating anaerobic palm oil mill effluent
AU - Wahid, Ruwaida Abdul
AU - Ang, Wei Lun
AU - Mohammad, Abdul Wahab
AU - Johnson, Daniel James
AU - Hilal, Nidal
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgments: The authors would like to acknowledge the Centre for Sustainable Process Technology (CESPRO) members, equipment assistance from the Morphology Laboratory, Centre for Research and Instrumentation Management (CRIM) staff, and the technical support from the Department of Chemical and Process Engineering staff, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.
Funding Information:
Funding: This research was funded by the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia through the Malaysian Research University Network (MRUN) under the grant code KK-2019-001 at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and the Royal Society International Collaboration Award (IC160133) (acknowledged under the grant code KK-2017-006 at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2021/8
Y1 - 2021/8
N2 - Fertilizer-drawn forward osmosis (FDFO) is a potential alternative to recover and reuse water and nutrients from agricultural wastewater, such as palm oil mill effluent that consists of 95% water and is rich in nutrients. This study investigated the potential of commercial fertilizers as draw solution (DS) in FDFO to treat anaerobic palm oil mill effluent (An-POME). The process parameters affecting FO were studied and optimized, which were then applied to fertilizer selection based on FO performance and fouling propensity. Six commonly used fertilizers were screened and assessed in terms of pure water flux (Jw) and reverse salt flux (JS ). Ammonium sulfate ((NH4 )2SO4 ), mono-ammonium phosphate (MAP), and potassium chloride (KCl) were further evaluated with An-POME. MAP showed the best performance against An-POME, with a high average water flux, low flux decline, the highest performance ratio (PR), and highest water recovery of 5.9% for a 4-h operation. In a 24-h fouling run, the average flux decline and water recovered were 84% and 15%, respectively. Both hydraulic flushing and osmotic backwashing cleaning were able to effectively restore the water flux. The results demonstrated that FDFO using commercial fertilizers has the potential for the treatment of An-POME for water recovery. Nevertheless, further investigation is needed to address challenges such as JS and the dilution factor of DS for direct use of fertigation.
AB - Fertilizer-drawn forward osmosis (FDFO) is a potential alternative to recover and reuse water and nutrients from agricultural wastewater, such as palm oil mill effluent that consists of 95% water and is rich in nutrients. This study investigated the potential of commercial fertilizers as draw solution (DS) in FDFO to treat anaerobic palm oil mill effluent (An-POME). The process parameters affecting FO were studied and optimized, which were then applied to fertilizer selection based on FO performance and fouling propensity. Six commonly used fertilizers were screened and assessed in terms of pure water flux (Jw) and reverse salt flux (JS ). Ammonium sulfate ((NH4 )2SO4 ), mono-ammonium phosphate (MAP), and potassium chloride (KCl) were further evaluated with An-POME. MAP showed the best performance against An-POME, with a high average water flux, low flux decline, the highest performance ratio (PR), and highest water recovery of 5.9% for a 4-h operation. In a 24-h fouling run, the average flux decline and water recovered were 84% and 15%, respectively. Both hydraulic flushing and osmotic backwashing cleaning were able to effectively restore the water flux. The results demonstrated that FDFO using commercial fertilizers has the potential for the treatment of An-POME for water recovery. Nevertheless, further investigation is needed to address challenges such as JS and the dilution factor of DS for direct use of fertigation.
KW - Commercial fertilizer
KW - Draw solution
KW - Fertilizer-drawn forward osmosis
KW - Forward osmosis
KW - Palm oil mill effluent
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U2 - 10.3390/membranes11080566
DO - 10.3390/membranes11080566
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85111774321
VL - 11
JO - Membranes
JF - Membranes
SN - 2077-0375
IS - 8
M1 - 566
ER -