This work proposed an innovative and energy-efficient Donnan Dialysis (DD) and Osmotic Distillation (OD) hybrid process for alkali-driven ammonium recovery from wastewater. The efficiency and feasibility of ammonium removal and recovery from synthetic and real wastewater using NaOH and waste alkali were investigated. Ammonium in the feed first transported across the cation exchange membrane and accumulated in the receiver chamber. It is then deprotonated as ammonia, passing through the gas permeable membrane and finally is fixed as ammonium salt in the acid chamber. Our results indicated that employing waste alkali (red mud leachate) as driving solution led to excellent ammonium recovery performances (recovery efficiency of >80%), comparable to those of NaOH solution. When the initial ammonium concentration was 5 and 50 mM, the waste alkali driven DD-OD process achieved acceptable NH4+-N flux density of 16.8 and 169 g N m-2 d-1, at energy cost as low as 8.38 and 2.06 kWh kg-1 N, respectively. Since this alkali driven DD-OD hybrid process is based on solute concentration (or partial pressure) gradient, it could be an energy-effective technology capable of treating wastewaters containing ammonium using waste alkali to realize nutrients recovery in a sustainable manner.
Keywords: Donnan Dialysis; Osmotic Distillation; ammonium recovery; concentration gradient; waste alkali.