Enhanced Treatment Ability of Membrane Technology by Integrating an Electric Field for Dye Wastewater Treatment: A Review

The increasing environmental awareness and stricter regulations have prompted the developments of various treatment technologies for dye wastewater. Membrane separation receives extensive attention as a promising technology because of many advantages. However, higher removal performance requirements and membrane fouling issues make a single separation method inadequate for the removal of dyes from industrial wastewater. Exerting an electric field on membrane separation system for dye wastewater treatment has already been proposed and newly developed in recent years because each technology complements the advantages and overcomes the challenges of the other. Although the amount of literature in this field is limited, this integrated technology has exhibited good performance on dye removal and is believed to have a bright prospect. This review mapped out the previous studies and current trends as well as provided a prospective outlook for advances in various membrane-combining technologies with an electric field, especially with the electric advanced oxidation processes. The different combination patterns, performance evaluations, removal mechanisms, and treatment parameters are gathered and discussed.