Nutrients Recovery in the Water and Wastewater Sector

The concept of circular economy applied to wastewater treatment sectors is a step toward sustainability. Considering the limitation on the availability of raw materials and resources for fertilizer manufacturing, nutrient recovery from wastewater is self-reliant from an economic and environmental perspective. In addition to that, eutrophication of water bodies is avoided by reducing the pollutant load on water bodies. This review described the methods and mechanisms of physicochemical, biological, and hybrid technologies for nutrient recovery from wastewater. The contemporary technologies have advantages over conventional methods due to the selective separation of nutrients in complex wastewater matrices containing other organic and metal ions. Bio-electrochemical systems (BES) and osmotic membrane bioreactors (OMBR) are very efficient and economic due to their low energy consumption. The economic dissection emphasizes the need for commercialization and quality checks on the recovered products. The efficiency of the nutrient recovery system and the quality of recovered products varies with the feedstock. The addition of a pre-treatment unit in the treatment or recovery train may enhance the efficiency of the nutrient recovery system.