Iranian Journal of

Background and Objective: Coagulation, which is carried out by mixing coagulants such as alum, ferric chloride and poly aluminum chloride PAC with raw water, is one of the main processes in conventional water treatment plants. Sludge from this process contains high amounts of coagulants with high economic value. Therefore, if these coagulants are recovered, in addition to reducing the risks relate to sludge disposal, the expenses related to the supply of fresh coagulant in water or wastewater treatment plant may decrease.
Materials and Methods: To access related documentation, ScienceDirect, Google scholar and other databases were searched using keywords such as “coagulant recovery”, “water residuals management”, etc. More than one hundred fifty documents were investigated based on the content validity and thematic relation. Gathered contents were classified and summarized under the titles of “recovery methods”, “repeated recoveries”, “recovery regarding economic aspect” and “advantages and disadvantages of methods”.
Results: Use of new methods such as combination of membrane and chemical processes or ion exchange membrane processes leads to the recovery of coagulants with a similar quality to the commercial ones. In case of using conventional and less costly methods such as acid digestion, quality of recovered coagulants is not comparable with those of commercial ones, which are used in water treatment.
Conclusion: Different coagulants recovery methods were investigated to determine the reuse strategies. It is likely that using of recovered coagulants through conventional methods is in accordance with the related regulations of the wastewater treatment plants. Industrial use of novel processes for recovery of coagulants with higher quality needs precise technical and economical investigations.
 

Background and Objective: Global market growth of reverse osmosis (RO) has led to an increase in annual disposal of membrane wastes. Therefore, evaluation of membrane waste management strategies is important to reduce their adverse environmental impacts. Due to the widespread domestic RO membrane market and their economic considerations, this study aims at investigation the direct recycling methods of RO membranes to extend their life cycles.
Materials and Methods: Academic search engines and citation databases such Scopus and PubMed was used to retrieve relevant papers. Selected documents were analyzed and compared in three aspects of technical, economic and environmental issues. 
Results: Direct recycling of RO is performed with fouling removal and degradation of polyamide layer (PA) using oxidizing agents like KMnO₄ and NaOCl. The degradation rate of the PA layer is controlled by optimizing the oxidant concentration during the oxidation process. Factors such as the type of membrane used, its storage conditions, the operating units’ conditions and the final expected product will determine the required concentration-time values. Strategies to reduce these values are very important from an economic and environmental point of view. Decreasing the concentration of oxidizing agent reduces the chlorinated and halogenated compounds emitted from the oxidizing unit which subsequently lessen their harmful environmental impacts and reduces the energy consumption required for treatment.
Conclusion:  The conversion of RO membranes to porous filters is technically possible by optimizing the conditions. In addition, the proper choice of RO membrane and final product type lead to economic and environmental productivity.

Background and Objective: The development of the automobile industry has caused various pollutants to enter the environment, one of which is fluoride. Therefore, this study aims to improve the fluoride removal from wastewater pre-paint units of the automotive industry to achieve discharge standards to surface waters.
Materials and Methods: The study is descriptive and on an applied scale, which has been carried out to compare the efficiency of the chemical coagulation process using lime and alum, as well as the electrocoagulation process using aluminum anodes in the presence of lime to remove fluoride.
Results: The results of real wastewater characteristics showed that the pH of wastewater is in the range of 6.1 to 6.3, and its fluoride concentration is in the range of 45 to 55 mg/L. The results of the experiments show that in the most optimal possible state in the chemical coagulation process, it is possible to achieve fluoride removal efficiency in the range of 76 to 81 percent. However, the removal efficiency in the electrocoagulation process using an aluminum anode at a concentration of 5 mol/L of calcium ions, and current density of 20 A/m² after reaction time of min 20 to 99% can also be achieved.
Conclusion: Considering the high fluoride removal rate (more than 99%) in the electrocoagulation process in the presence of calcium ions, this process can be introduced as an efficient technology for fluoride removal.