Integrated Process Environmental and Economic Modeling of Electrically Assisted Forward Osmosis Microbial Desalination for Water and Struvite Recovery
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Electrically assisted forward osmosis (eFO) coupled with a microbial desalination cell (MDC) integrates water recovery, nutrient recovery, desalination, and bioelectricity utilization. This study coupled a previously validated hybrid mechanistic–data-driven model with cradle-to-grave life cycle assessment (LCA) and techno-economic analysis (TEA) to evaluate the sustainability of eFO–MDC across operating conditions and scale-up scenarios. Operational electricity was the dominant environmental hotspot, accounting for 90.7% of the positive life-cycle GWP burden, whereas manufacturing impacts were concentrated in the MDC cathode and energy-management unit. Model-coupled LCA showed that hydraulic throughput strongly governed treatment-normalized impacts, while applied voltage produced comparatively small changes in GWP relative to its effect on nutrient recovery. TEA identified capital intensity, pumping, and treatment scale as the principal economic drivers, with combined scale-up and capital reduction lowering processing cost by 67.8%. Overall, eFO–MDC sustainability depends primarily on improving throughput and energy efficiency while reducing capital intensity during scale-up.
Source: ChemRxiv
Institutions: Temple University, Zhejiang A & F University
Language: English
Subfield: Water Science and Technology
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7220858021