Membrane desalination for water treatment: recent developments, techno-economic evaluation and innovative approaches toward water sustainability

Over the last decades, sustainable supplement of freshwater has been a global challenge for growing population all over the world. Abundance of brackish/seawater on the surface of the earth has motivated the scientists to apply novel desalination technologies to meet the increasing demand of water in various industrial/non-industrial applications. The main objective of this paper is to analytically evaluate the efficiency of membrane-based desalination techniques such as reverse osmosis, ultrafiltration, microfiltration and nanofiltration and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each of them in water treatment. Moreover, a techno-economic comparison between commonly employed desalination technologies is aimed to present to assess the cost-effectiveness and true cost of conventional technologies. Discussion about the application of novel nanomaterials for decreasing the energy demand following with disparate approaches to control the fouling phenomenon is another important purpose of this review paper.