Hybrid membrane technology for waste treatment and resource recovery from aquaculture effluent

The aquaculture industry have shown drastic growth over the years due to increased aquatic product consumption. With tremendous growth, the amount of generated aquaculture effluent has surged. The global shift toward sustainable goals has caused degradative treatment methods to be obsolete and induced the birth of new resource recovery treatment methods. However, the fluctuating and dilute nature of aquaculture effluent renders nutrient recovery methods inefficient. Hybrid membrane technologies provides promising potential in handling the complex effluent and effectively concentrating the nutrients for recovery. This chapter compiles the existing research on various hybrid membrane systems alongside depleting and recovering conventional treatment methods. The nature of aquaculture effluent is also briefly introduced to apprehend the complexity of the effluent. Hybrid membrane systems present in this chapter are an integration of conventional treatment methods (chemical or biological methods) and membrane technologies. The purpose of this chapter is to evaluate the performance and efficiency of existing hybrid membrane systems on water and nutrient recovery. Conventional treatment methods and membrane technologies on aquaculture effluent treatment are included for comparison and act as reference for possible combinations of hybrid membrane systems in the future. Existing hybrid membrane technologies displayed satisfactory rejection of nutrients and high-quality water effluent but are lacking in the recovery of nutrients. Thus further research and innovations are required for better performance of hybrid membrane systems in treating and recovering the resources from aquaculture effluent.