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Membrane Processes for Resource Recovery from Anaerobically Digested Livestock Manure Effluent: Opportunities and Challenges

  • Water Pollution (G Toor and L Nghiem, Section Editors)
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose of Review

Membrane techniques have been employed to concentrate livestock manure effluent from anaerobic digestion to produce highly concentrated liquid organic fertilizer. This review aims to provide a comprehensive understanding on the opportunities and challenges of membrane processes in the concentration of digested effluent for their further implementation.

Recent Findings

Anaerobic digestion has been deployed to convert livestock manure into biogas (energy) and digestate with high potential as biofertilizer. Digestate can be separated into a solid and liquid fraction to reduce required capacity for onsite storage. The liquid fraction, known as digested effluent, remains a vexing challenge to digestate management due to the contradiction between its continuous production and seasonal application to farmlands, particularly in developing countries. Recent investigation has demonstrated the promise of membrane techniques for the concentration of digested effluent to recover recycling water and produce nutrient-rich liquid fertilizer. These techniques mainly include hydraulically driven membrane processes (from microfiltration to reverse osmosis), forward osmosis, membrane distillation, and electrodialysis. In most cases, these membrane techniques are hybridized to enhance the concentration efficiency. Nevertheless, the practical application of these membrane processes is hindered by several technical challenges, which mainly include membrane fouling, contaminant enrichment, ammonia volatilization, and high economic input.

Summary

In this paper, we critically reviewed the performance of different membrane processes in the concentration of digested livestock manure effluent. Key technical challenges and their potential countermeasures were elucidated. Furthermore, future perspectives were provided to shed light on further development of membrane concentration techniques in the field.

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Funding

This research was supported under the Key Program of the Natural Science Foundation of Guizhou Province, China (Project No. 20191452), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project No. 51708547).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    Zhiye Zhang

  2. Beijing Key Laboratory of Farmland Soil Pollution Prevention and Remediation, College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China

    Zhicheng Xu, Guoxue Li & Wenhai Luo

  3. National Engineering Laboratory for Advanced Municipal Wastewater Treatment and Reuse Technology, Engineering Research Center of Beijing, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing, 100124, China

    Xiaoye Song

  4. Institute of Soil and Fertilizer, Guizhou Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Guiyang, 550006, Guizhou, China

    Bangxi Zhang

  5. Sustainable Energy Systems Engineering Group, School of Engineering, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia

    Nazmul Huda & Wenhai Luo

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  1. Zhiye Zhang
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  2. Zhicheng Xu
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  3. Xiaoye Song
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  4. Bangxi Zhang
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Correspondence to Wenhai Luo.

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Zhang, Z., Xu, Z., Song, X. et al. Membrane Processes for Resource Recovery from Anaerobically Digested Livestock Manure Effluent: Opportunities and Challenges. Curr Pollution Rep 6, 123–136 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40726-020-00143-7

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