● Fundamentals of membrane fouling are comprehensively reviewed.

Membrane technology is widely regarded as one of the most promising technologies for wastewater treatment and reclamation in the 21st century. However, membrane fouling significantly limits its applicability and productivity. In recent decades, research on the membrane fouling has been one of the hottest spots in the field of membrane technology. In particular, recent advances in thermodynamics have substantially widened people’s perspectives on the intrinsic mechanisms of membrane fouling. Formulation of fouling mitigation strategies and fabrication of anti-fouling membranes have both benefited substantially from those studies. In the present review, a summary of the recent results on the thermodynamic mechanisms associated with the critical adhesion and filtration processes during membrane fouling is provided. Firstly, the importance of thermodynamics in membrane fouling is comprehensively assessed. Secondly, the quantitative methods and general factors involved in thermodynamic fouling mechanisms are critically reviewed. Based on the aforementioned information, a brief discussion is presented on the potential applications of thermodynamic fouling mechanisms for membrane fouling control. Finally, prospects for further research on thermodynamic mechanisms underlying membrane fouling are presented. Overall, the present review offers comprehensive and in-depth information on the thermodynamic mechanisms associated with complex fouling behaviors, which will further facilitate research and development in membrane technology.

● A higher sulfur content reduced the curing rate of Cr in glass.

This work designed a new CaO-Al₂O₃-SiO₂-SO₃ glass for the immobilization of multiple heavy metals found in dechlorinated fly ash having high amounts of calcium and sulfur. Increasing the (CaO + SO₃)/SiO₂ mass ratio (M(CS/S)) from 0.28 to 0.85 was found to lower the proportions of Mn, Ni and Zn in an unstable state, while an M(CS/S) ratio of 0.51 gave the lowest proportions of unstable Cr and Pb. Decreasing the degree of polymerization of the glassy network increased the proportions of Mn, Cr, Ni, Pb and Zn in the carbonate bound state. The leaching out of metals in this state was the primary cause of degradation of Q³ structural units in the glassy network. The amount of Mn in the iron-manganese oxide bound state was increased by increasing the number of Q² units in the silicate network. Decreasing the CaO/SiO₂ mass ratio (M(C/S)) raised the proportions of Mn, Ni and Zn in the unstable state. An M(C/S) value of 0.43 lowered the proportions of unstable Cr and Pb. A principal components analysis determined that the leaching of toxic heavy metals from the glass was primarily related to the proportions of these metals in the unstable state while there were no evident correlations between leaching and the proportions in stable states.

● Greenhouse gas mitigation by biomass-based CO₂ utilization with a Fe cycle system.

CO₂ utilization becomes a promising solution for reducing anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Biomass-based CO₂ utilization (BCU) even has the potential to generate negative emissions, but the corresponding quantitative evaluation is limited. Herein, the biomass-based CO₂ utilization with an iron cycle (BCU-Fe) system, which converts CO₂ into formate by Fe under hydrothermal conditions and recovers Fe with biomass-derived glycerin, was investigated. The GHG reduction potential under various process designs was quantified by a multidisciplinary method, including experiments, simulations, and an ex-ante life-cycle assessment. The results reveal that the BCU-Fe system could bring considerable GHG emission reduction. Significantly, the lowest value is −34.03 kg CO₂-eq/kg absorbed CO₂ (−2.44 kg CO₂-eq/kg circulated Fe) with the optimal yield of formate (66%) and Fe (80%). The proposed ex-ante evaluation approach not only reveals the benefits of mitigating climate change by applying the BCU-Fe system, but also serves as a generic tool to guide the industrialization of emerging carbon-neutral technologies.

● The fouling is summarized based on ceramic membrane performance and pollutants.

Membrane separation, as an important drinking water treatment technology, has wide applications. The remarkable advantages of ceramic membranes, such as chemical stability, thermal stability, and high mechanical strength, endow them with broader prospects for development. Despite the importance and advantages of membrane separation in water treatment, the technique has a limitation: membrane fouling, which greatly lowers its effectiveness. This is caused by organics, inorganic substances, and microorganisms clogging the pore and polluting the membrane surface. The increase in membrane pollution greatly lowers purification effectiveness. Controlling membrane fouling is critical in ensuring the efficient and stable operation of ceramic membranes for water treatment. This review analyzes four mechanisms of ceramic membrane fouling, namely complete blocking, standard blocking, intermediate blocking, and cake filtration blocking. It evaluates the mechanisms underlying ceramic membrane fouling and summarizes the progress in approaches aimed at controlling it. These include ceramic membrane pretreatment, ceramic membrane surface modification, membrane cleaning, magnetization, ultrasonics, and nanobubbles. This review highlights the importance of optimizing ceramic membrane preparation through further research on membrane fouling and pre-membrane pretreatment mechanisms. In addition, combining process regulations with ceramic membranes as the core is an important research direction for ceramic membrane-based water treatment.

● Effects of AER adsorption and NF on DBP precursors, DBPs, and TOX were examined.

Disinfection byproducts (DBPs) are emerging pollutants in drinking water with high health risks. Precursor reduction before disinfection is an effective strategy to control the formation of DBPs. In this study, three types of anion exchange resins (AERs) and two types of nanofiltration (NF) membranes were tested for their control effects on DBP precursors, DBPs, and total organic halogen (TOX). The results showed that, for AER adsorption, the removal efficiencies of DBP precursors, DBPs, and TOX increased with the increase of resin dose, and the strong basic macroporous anion exchange resin (M500MB) had the highest removal efficiencies. For NF, the highest removal efficiencies were achieved at an operating pressure of 4 bar, and the membrane (NF90) with a smaller molecular weight cut-off, had a better control efficiency. However, AER adsorption was inefficient in removing dissolved organic carbon (DOC); NF was inefficient in removing Br⁻ resulting in insufficient control of Br-DBPs. Accordingly, a sequential approach of AER (M500MB) adsorption followed by NF (NF90) was developed to enhance the control efficiency of DBPs. Compared with single AER adsorption and single NF, the sequential approach further increased the removal efficiencies of DOC by 19.4%–101.9%, coupled with the high Br⁻ removal efficiency of 92%, and thus improved the reduction of cyclic DBPs and TOX by 3.5%–4.9%, and 2.4%–8.4%, respectively; the sequential approach also reduced the cytotoxicity of the water sample by 66.4%.

Despite extensive research on microplastics (MP) in marine environments, little is known about MP abundance and transport in terrestrial systems. There is, therefore, still little understanding of the main mechanisms driving the substantial transport of MP across different environmental compartments. Storm events can transport MP beyond boundaries, such as from the land to groundwater or the ocean, as has already been discovered for organic carbon transport. Urban stormwater detention ponds are suitable environments to study the impact of stormwater on the environmental fate and transport of MP. Herein, we investigate the longitudinal and vertical distribution of MP within two detention ponds with different physical characteristics. Soil samples were collected at various locations and from multiple depths (surface and subsurface layers) for measuring MP concentrations using fluorescence microscopy. Our findings show that MP are retained more near the inlet of the ponds, and MP of larger sizes were found more abundantly near inlets than outlets. We also found that MP mass and sizes decrease from surface soil to subsurface soil. In the pond, where vegetation (grass root network) was more considerable, MP were found more evenly distributed along the depth. In terms of shape, the fragments were the most abundant MP shape.

● Au, Ag and Pd were recovered from WPCBs with high efficiencies.

The work presented here focused on the extraction of gold (Au), silver (Ag) and palladium (Pd) from electronic waste using a solution of ammonium thiosulfate. Thiosulfate was used as a valid alternative to cyanide for precious metal extractions, due to its non-toxicity and high selectivity. The interactions between sodium thiosulfate, total ammonia/ammonium, precious metal concentrations and the particle size of the waste printed circuit boards (WPCBs) were studied by the response surface methodology (RSM) and the principal component analysis (PCA) to maximize precious metal mobilization. Au extraction reached a high efficiency with a granulometry of less than 0.25 mm, but the consumption of reagents was high. On the other hand, Ag extraction depended neither on thiosulfate/ammonia concentration nor granulometry of WPCBs and it showed efficiency of 90% also with the biggest particle size (0.50 < Ø < 1.00 mm). Pd extraction, similarly to Au, showed the best efficiency with the smallest and the medium WPCB sizes, but required less reagents compared to Au. The results showed that precious metal leaching is a complex process (mainly for Au, which requires more severe conditions in order to achieve high extraction efficiencies) correlated with reagent concentrations, precious metal concentrations and WPCB particle sizes. These results have great potentiality, suggesting the possibility of a more selective recovery of precious metals based on the different granulometry of the WPCBs. Furthermore, the high extraction efficiencies obtained for all the metals bode well in the perspective of large-scale applications.

● Nitrifiers in WWTP were investigated at large spatial scale.

Ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and nitrite-oxidizing bacteria (NOB) play crucial roles in removing nitrogen from sewage in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) to protect water resources. However, the differences in ecological properties and putative interactions of AOB and NOB in WWTPs at a large spatial scale remain unclear. Hence, 132 activated sludge (AS) samples collected from 11 cities across China were studied by utilizing 16S rRNA gene sequencing technology. Results indicated that Nitrosomonas and Nitrosospira accounted for similar ratios of the AOB community and might play nearly equal roles in ammonia oxidation in AS. However, Nitrospira greatly outnumbered other NOB genera, with proportions varying from 94.7% to 99.9% of the NOB community in all WWTPs. Similar compositions and, hence, a low distance–decay turnover rate of NOB (0.035) across China were observed. This scenario might have partly resulted from the high proportions of homogenizing dispersal (~13%). Additionally, drift presented dominant roles in AOB and NOB assembling mechanisms (85.2% and 81.6% for AOB and NOB, respectively). The partial Mantel test illustrated that sludge retention time and temperature were the primary environmental factors affecting AOB and NOB communities. Network results showed that NOB played a leading role in maintaining module structures and node connections in AS. Moreover, most links between NOB and other microorganisms were positive, indicating that NOB were involved in complex symbioses with bacteria in AS.

● A method based on ATR-FTIR and ML was developed to predict CHNS contents in waste.

Elemental composition is a key parameter in solid waste treatment and disposal. This study has proposed a method based on infrared spectroscopy and machine learning algorithms that can rapidly predict the elemental composition (C, H, N, S) of solid waste. Both noise and moisture spectral interference that may occur in practical application are investigated. By comparing two feature selection methods and five machine learning algorithms, the most suitable models are selected. Moreover, the impacts of noise and moisture on the models are discussed, with paper, plastic, textiles, wood, and leather as examples of recyclable waste components. The results show that the combination of the feature selection and K-nearest neighbor (KNN) approaches exhibits the best prediction performance and generalization ability. Particularly, the coefficient of determination (R²) of the validation set, cross validation and test set are higher than 0.93, 0.89, and 0.97 for predicting the C, H, and N contents, respectively. Further, KNN is less sensitive to noise. Under moisture interference, the combination of feature selection and support vector regression or partial least-squares regression shows satisfactory results. Therefore, the elemental compositions of solid waste are quickly and accurately predicted under noise and moisture disturbances using infrared spectroscopy and machine learning algorithms.

● A new adsorption-membrane separation strategy is used for phosphate removal.

Enhanced phosphorus treatment and recovery has been continuously pursued due to the stringent wastewater discharge regulations and a phosphate supply shortage. Here, a new adsorption-membrane separation strategy was developed for rational reutilization of phosphate from sea cucumber aquaculture wastewater using a Zr-modified-bentonite filled polyvinyl chloride membrane. The as-obtained polyvinyl chloride/Zr-modified-bentonite membrane was highly permeability (940 L/(m²·h)), 1–2 times higher than those reported in other studies, and its adsorption capacity was high (20.6 mg/g) when the phosphate concentration in water was low (5 mg/L). It remained stable under various conditions, such as different pH, initial phosphate concentrations, and the presence of different ions after 24 h of adsorption in a cross-flow filtration system. The total phosphorus and phosphate removal rate reached 91.5% and 95.9%, respectively, after the membrane was used to treat sea cucumber aquaculture wastewater for 24 h and no other water quality parameters had been changed. After the purification process, the utilization of the membrane as a new source of phosphorus in the phosphorus-free f/2 medium experiments indicated the high cultivability of economic microalgae Phaeodactylum tricornutum FACHB-863 and 1.2 times more chlorophyll a was present than in f/2 medium. The biomass and lipid content of the microalgae in the two different media were similar. The innovative polyvinyl chloride/Zr-modified-bentonite membrane used for phosphorus removal and recovery is an important instrument to establish the groundwork for both the treatment of low concentration phosphate from wastewater as well as the reuse of enriched phosphorus in required fields.

Converting biomass materials to humic acid is a sustainable method for humic acid production and achieve biomass valorization. A two-step hydrothermal treatment method was adopted in this study to produce humic acid from corn stalks. In the first step of the process, hydrochar was prepared at different hydrothermal temperatures and pH values. Their chemical properties were then analyzed, and the hydrochar-derived humic acids were produced under alkaline hydrothermal conditions (denoted as HHA_alk). The hydrochar, prepared under high temperature (200 °C) and strong acidic (pH 0) conditions, achieved high HHA_alk yields (i.e., 67.9 wt% and 68.8 wt% calculated based on weight of hydrochar). The sources of HHA_alk formation were as follows: 1) production in the hydrochar preparation stage, and 2) increment under the alkaline hydrothermal treatment of hydrochar. The degree of hydrochar unsaturation was suggested as an indicator for evaluating the hydrochar humification potential under alkaline hydrothermal conditions. This study provides an important reference for the preparation of suitable hydrochar with high hydrothermal humification potential.

● Energy harvesters harness multiple energies for self-powered water purification.

The development of self-powered water purification technologies for decentralized applications is crucial for ensuring the provision of drinking water in resource-limited regions. The elimination of the dependence on external energy inputs and the attainment of self-powered status significantly expands the applicability of the treatment system in real-world scenarios. Hybrid energy harvesters, which convert multiple ambient energies simultaneously, show the potential to drive self-powered water purification facilities under fluctuating actual conditions. Here, we propose recent advancements in hybrid energy systems that simultaneously harvest various ambient energies (e.g., photo irradiation, flow kinetic, thermal, and vibration) to drive water purification processes. The mechanisms of various energy harvesters and point-of-use water purification treatments are first outlined. Then we summarize the hybrid energy harvesters that can drive water purification treatment. These hybrid energy harvesters are based on the mechanisms of mechanical and photovoltaic, mechanical and thermal, and thermal and photovoltaic effects. This review provides a comprehensive understanding of the potential for advancing beyond the current state-of-the-art of hybrid energy harvester-driven water treatment processes. Future endeavors should focus on improving catalyst efficiency and developing sustainable hybrid energy harvesters to drive self-powered treatments under unstable conditions (e.g., fluctuating temperatures and humidity).