GOALI: Reclaiming Valuable Resources from Industrial Wastewater

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1605957Arias-ChavezWhile the reclamation of materials and energy from municipal wastewater has received recent attention from the environmental engineering community, the potential of industrial wastewater as a resource has been largely overlooked. Sustainability gains may be particularly significant for industrial wastewater in light of: 1) lower composition and flow variability in industrial streams relative to municipal wastewater and 2) the opportunity for immediate, on-site re-use of reclaimed materials by their source generator. Therefore, new strategies for effective and economical separation of industrial wastewaters for component re-use are proposed in this project.The PIs propose an academic-industry collaboration combining fundamental and applied research to investigate a new strategy for reclaiming resources from industrial wastewater. A dual-membrane process for recovering hydrocarbons, inorganic components, and water from industrial wastewater associated with production of hydrogen, synthetic fuels, electricity, and heat from biomass is proposed. Currently, wastewater produced by the process represents an energetic, economic, and environmental cost because it cannot be reclaimed and its components must be degraded or sequestered to permit its discharge to municipal sewer systems. The PI has research experience with membrane technologies suitable for reclamation of water, other materials, and energy from conventional and emerging industries. Together, the PIs will systematically investigate the separation of industrial wastewater components by a forward osmosis/ reverse osmosis hybrid membrane system, first at the bench-scale in the PI's lab, and then at the pilot-scale at the co-PI's industrial facility. Technical and economic aspects will be explored. Successful demonstration of this reclamation technology can transform society's approach to industrial wastewater from one of hazard mitigation to one of resource harvesting. The proposed work will advance the scientific understanding of the transport of organic and inorganic components through selective membranes in complex (multiple species) streams. The efficacy of pH as a controlling factor in separating dissolved species through multi-barrier membrane systems will be better understood. The resistance of forward osmosis membranes to fouling by hydrocarbons will be explored, as will the removal of foulants by minimally-disruptive methods. Probing the limits of forward osmosis fouling resistance is critical for predicting maximum recoveries of hydrocarbons and other industrial waste components with high fouling potentials. New membranes specialized for this industrial wastewater will be fabricated and evaluated. Undergraduates will join graduate students for investigations in the research lab through system design and economic analysis performed in a senior-level Chemical Engineering course.