Reclaiming Water from Wastewater using Forward Osmosis

Abstract

Water scarcity is a global issue and waste accumulation is a steadily growing one. The innovative Sewer Mining concept, described in this thesis, is an example of an integrated forward osmosis application which incorporates different technologies to attain one goal: water recovery from wastewater, and subsequent energy production. Forward osmosis membrane technology shows great potential as a sustainable treatment of wastewater. The high quality reclaimed water is a suitable and low cost alternative for many industrial processes that currently exhaust much of the available drinking water supply. By extracting water and energy from wastewater, this thesis aims to alleviate water stress while simultaneously changing the way wastewater is perceived: not as waste, but as a useful resource.