A review of resource recovery from seawater desalination brine

Polymeric and inorganic sorbents as a green option to recover critical raw materials at trace levels from sea saltwork bitterns

“…, sorption and ion exchange). 9,17 In fact, although not many studies have been reported regarding the recovery of TEs from seawater or brines, the literature indicates sorption and ion exchange processes as the most suitable methods for the recovery of most of them ( e.g. , Li, Sr, Rb, and Cs) because of the high selectivity of the sorbents, which appears as an essential property when dealing with elements at trace levels (μg L −1 or ng L −1 ).…”

“…, Li, Sr, Rb, and Cs) because of the high selectivity of the sorbents, which appears as an essential property when dealing with elements at trace levels (μg L −1 or ng L −1 ). 4,9,18,19 In addition, sorption processes are not only selective but also simple, efficient, and low-cost methods to extract these TEs. 4,17,20…”

“…Therefore, the use of seawater brines, such as those from membrane-based desalination plants, with salt concentrations higher compared to seawater (ca., 6.6% (w/w) would favour the recovery of these metals or minerals. 9 Another kind of seawater brine can be found in seawater solar saltworks, which are defined as a group of shallow ponds where the concentration of saline water and sodium chloride crystallization take place. 10 In comparison to the desalination plants, their operation is based on solar energy, although most of them are constructed in such a way that they can also take advantage of the wind for evaporating the water.…”

“…These processes can be classified, for example, depending on the type of driving force used: pressure-driven (e.g., reverse osmosis), thermally driven (e.g., evaporation), electrochemical potential-driven (e.g., electrodialy-sis), and physico-chemically driven (e.g., sorption and ion exchange). 9,17 In fact, although not many studies have been reported regarding the recovery of TEs from seawater or brines, the literature indicates sorption and ion exchange processes as the most suitable methods for the recovery of most of them (e.g., Li, Sr, Rb, and Cs) because of the high selectivity of the sorbents, which appears as an essential property when dealing with elements at trace levels (µg L −1 or ng L −1 ). 4,9,18,19 In addition, sorption processes are not only selective but also simple, efficient, and low-cost methods to extract these TEs.…”

Decreasing Seawater Desalination Footprint by Integrating Bipolar-Membrane Electrodialysis in a Single-Pass Reverse Osmosis Scheme

“…12,13 Therefore, further progress in SW desalination requires new innovative operational approaches and process designs. 2,5 In recent years, progress has been made in pretreatment, 11,14,15 post-treatment, 16,17 and recovering valuable minerals 18 and energy 19,20 from the RO retentate stream. In our previous work, 11 we introduced a new pretreatment approach, enabling energy-efficient single-step boron removal and reuse of CO 2 that was extracted from SW.…”