System water recirculation needs to be given the highest priority whenever and wherever possible by the industries. This means that the conventional wisdom of end-of- pipe treatment for pollutants discharge may not be sufficient. Additional in-plant water conservation efforts are becoming necessary to reduce the volume of effluents discharged and minimize solid waste for disposal. The development of process integration technique has been one of the most significant advances in waste minimisation in the past decades. Via in-plant material reuse/recycle, both raw material consumption and waste...

In the industry, membrane technology can be used for instance for recycling chemicals, cleaning total effluent, or membranes can be used as a 'kidney' in the industry to eliminate contaminants from the water circulation system. The membrane separation processes can be tailored according to the required degree of purification by choosing the convenient membrane. Disposal of concentrate (retentate) obtained from membrane filtration effluent from industry, is a major problem. Many attempts have been made for treatment/disposal of concentrate using conventional biological treatment or land...