Current advances in membrane technologies for produced water desalination

The limited clean water resource has urged the need to extract fresh water from non-conventional sources. Produced water (PW) is a potential source of fresh water, particularly for oil-producing countries experiencing water stress issue. The engagement of membrane-based desalination technology in the field of PW treatment brings about new possibility of water reclamation. This review highlights the state-of-the-art membrane-based technologies including both stand-alone and their hybrid system, for PW treatment and reclamation. While reverse osmosis continues as a reliable option for PW treatment, emerging technologies like forward osmosis and membrane distillation have attained increasing attentions from the desalination community. To pave a way for practical applications of membrane technologies for PW desalination, the recent advances in term of membrane properties improvement, operating condition optimization, and membrane cleaning protocols are reviewed. Finally, the challenges and future outlooks of current PW desalination technologies are also highlighted. •State-of-the-art PW desalination technologies are reviewed.•Merits and limitation of RO, FO and MD PW desalinations are discussed.•Strategies of improving membrane-based PW desalination are reviewed.•Challenges are identified and the future perspectives are proposed.