Recent developments in membrane technology for the elimination of ammonia from wastewater: A review

This review article presents an extensive study on ammonia elimination from wastewater through membrane separation technology. The mechanism, performance and morphology of different types of membranes that have been employed for ammonia removal from wastewater such as hollow fiber membrane contactor, membrane distillation contactor and flat sheet membranes including blend, and mixed matrix membranes were analyzed. The impact of various variables, for example feed solution pH, concentration of ammonia in the feed solution, operation temperature, membrane thickness, the feed velocity and striping phase velocity on ammonia removal performance of membranes, was evaluated. To summarize the experimental studies, the best performance of membranes reported in the articles was compared and the future perspective of ammonia removal by membrane technology was reported.