Extraction of volatile organic compounds from water and wastewater by vacuum-driven membrane process: A comprehensive review

• Published in: Chemical engineering journal (Lausanne, Switzerland : 1996) Switzerland : 1996), 2022-04, Vol.434, p.134664, Article 134664
• Main Authors: Fatima, Saeed, Govardhan, Bapanipally, Kalyani, Swayampakula, Sridhar, Sundergopal
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: And fermentation broths; Food condensate; Membrane types; Vacuum-based membrane process; Volatile organic compounds
• ISSN: 1385-8947; 1873-3212
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cej.2022.134664

•Review on separation of VOCs from wastewater by vacuum driven membrane techniques.•Highlighting the different hydrophobic polymeric materials, and their synthesis techniques.•Performance parameters for VOCs recovery in aqueous streams are widely discussed.•Current state of these techniques in various industrial applications are presented.•Recovery of aroma, Cl – VOCs from water, and extraction from fermentation broths. The separation of VOCs from aqueous streams is a significant process in many industries, which is quite challenging. Vacuum-based membrane techniques like pervaporation, vacuum membrane distillation, and vapor permeation are emerging technologies in terms of environmental cleanup operations, especially in removing VOCs from industrial wastewaters. In this era, the review is mainly highlighting the current state of these technologies for applications such as recovery of aroma from food condensate, removing chlorinated VOCs from wastewater streams, and extracting VOCs from fermentation broths. The peer-reviewed literature data, background history of the membrane processes along with the membrane performance in terms of flux and selectivity in this area being the backbone of this article.The major challenges to use these processes for real-time applications lie in membrane types, membrane modules, feed composition, etc. The commercial membranes are not reaching to researcher’s expectations due to several variations in membrane material and their characteristics like membrane pore size and its distributions, surface properties, etc. Furthermore, the limitations and benefits of these processes, future research, and directions have been pointed out in this review. Hence, the integration of membrane based processes with the conventional one targets towards achieving process sustainability on the industrial scale thereby reducing the production and processing cost.