Perspectives and research direction on polymeric membrane integration for sustainable aquaculture industries

Sustainability is an important aspect of aquaculture industries. By applying appropriate technologies and practices, aquaculture industries can contribute to being more environmentally friendly and reduce negative impacts on natural ecosystems. Conventional aquaculture technology adopts flow-through systems that relate to high concentrations of suspended solids, pathogens, and nitrogen in effluent. These conditions lead to productivity loss, disease outbreaks, and threatened environments. Coupled with the fact of limited water and land area issues, aquaculture industries should be compelled to be wise when employing recirculating systems. Unfortunately, the effluent treatment is still not maximal where mostly < 82% for nitrogen removal and < 71.5% for solids removal. To overcome those problems, polymeric membrane integration in aquaculture industries offers an attractive solution. This review reports that polymeric membranes can satisfactorily remove nearly 99–100% of pathogens removal, up to 97–100% of nitrogen removal, up to 97% of phosphorous removal, up to 100% of solids removal, and 86–98% of turbidity removal, as well as robust, transportable, simple, and low carbon footprint of the operation. Nevertheless, air scouring, backflushing, or membrane surface modification should be performed to overcome fouling phenomenon that frequently occurs in the membrane. Interestingly, applications of polymeric membranes in aquaculture industries have rapidly grown in recent years, evidenced by 500 industries with varying daily capacities of up to 3785.01 m3. Hence, the role of membrane integration is conclusively able to provide economic and environmental benefits for sustainable aquaculture industries.