Wastewater discharge of traditional Chinese medicine production is a serious threat to the environment in China. This study investigated the effectiveness of the UF-FO-MD hybrid system for resources recycle from the TCM wastewater. Real TCM wastewater was treated with the self-assemble UF-FO-MD hybrid system. Moreover, the natural surfactant rejection and the FO fouling impact were evaluated by separate FO operation with synthetic TCM wastewater, and MD wetting was also assessed. Results show that the UF-FO-MD hybrid system successfully isolated the macromolecular substances, bioactive compounds and water in the TCM wastewater for recovering useful resources. Natural surfactants in the TCM wastewater could be effectively rejected by FO, avoiding the subsequent MD wetting problem which has occurred in our previous study on the resource recovering with the UF-MD hybrid system. However, FO membrane fouling might be an issue affecting the recovery efficiency of bioactive compounds from TCM wastewater. The bioactive compounds could not be completely concentrated due to potential adsorption on the fouling layer.

中药生产废水排放对我国环境构成严重威胁。本研究调查了 UF-FO-MD 混合系统对中药废水资源循环利用的有效性。用自组装UF-FO-MD混合系统处理真正的中药废水。此外，通过单独的 FO 操作与合成 TCM 废水评估天然表面活性剂排斥和 FO 结垢影响，并且还评估了 MD 润湿。结果表明，UF-FO-MD混合系统成功地分离了中药废水中的大分子物质、生物活性化合物和水，以回收有用的资源。中药废水中的天然表面活性剂可被 FO 有效去除，避免了我们之前对 UF-MD 混合系统进行资源回收的研究中出现的后续 MD 润湿问题。然而，FO 膜污染可能是影响中药废水中生物活性化合物回收效率的一个问题。由于污垢层上的潜在吸附，生物活性化合物不能完全浓缩。