The ultimate goal of seawater reverse osmosis brine management is to achieve minimal liquid discharge while recovering valuable resources. The suitability of an integrated system of membrane distillation (MD) with sorption for the recovery of rubidium (Rb⁺) and simultaneous SWRO brine volume reduction has been evaluated for the first time. Polymer encapsulated potassium copper hexacyanoferrate (KCuFC(PAN)) sorbent exhibited a good selectivity for Rb⁺ sorption. The integrated MD-KCuFC (PAN) system with periodic membrane cleaning, enabled 65% water recovery. A stable MD permeate flux was achieved with good quality permeate. KCuFC (PAN) showed a high regeneration and reuse capacity. Ammonium chloride air stripping followed by resorcinol formaldehyde resin filtration enabled to recover Rb⁺ from the desorbed solution.

• 정상현(성균관대학교) | Sanghyun Jeong
• 임승주(성균관대학교) | Sung-Ju Im
• Gayathri Naidu(University of Technology Sydney)
• 최영권(University of Technology Sydney) | Youngkwon Choi
• 정다운(성균관대학교) | Dawoon Jeong
• 장암(성균관대학교) | Am Jang
• Anthony G. Fane(Nanyang Technological University)
• Saravanamuthu Vigneswaran(University of Technology Sydney)