PROGRAMME

Currently, petroleum-based volatile fatty acids (VFAs) sources are not acceptable towards sustainable development goals (SDG); therefore, biobased-derived VFAs are of interest. Anaerobic digestion has been identified as a useful technology for the production of biobased VFAs from organic waste residue because of their environmental sustainability, easy operation and affordability. The anaerobically digested liquid comprises several inorganic and organic compounds/particles, including VFAs, which is one of the main challenges nowadays since the particles/compounds free VFAs are highly demanded. Hence, pressure-driven membrane filtration technologies (microfiltration, ultrafiltration, nanofiltration and reverse osmosis) is being widely used due to their higher VFAs recovery efficiency. Microfiltration and ultrafiltration usually applied as pretreatment for removing coarser particles, while nanofiltration and reverse osmosis possess a remarkable role in recovery performances. This report is highlighted on the various types of membrane used for VFAs recovery percentages and critically discuss their influence. Afterwards, it was confirmed that lower pore size membranes offer better recovery percentages of VFAs over higher pore size membranes due to their permeability rate.