Recent trends in research, development and application of membrane technology in the pulp and paper industry

Membrane technology has been commercially applied in the pulp and paper industry since the 1970s and is now commonly used in several areas. However, applications in this industry which is based so heavily on water represent less than 6% of the global membrane market, indicating that there are still many areas to be explored. This low penetration of membrane technology in the pulp and paper industry is mainly due to high cost and to application problems such as fouling. The background, research, development and applications of membrane technologies including reverse osmosis (RO), microfiltration (MF), nanofiltration (NF), ultrafiltration (UF) and membrane bioreactors (MBR) in different areas of the pulp and paper industry are surveyed in this literature review. More recent and potential advances such as electrodialysis (ED) and membrane distillation (MD), and their potential uses in the industry are also discussed.