ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Membr. Sci. Technol.
Sec. Membrane Applications - Liquid
This article is part of the Research TopicAdvancing Sustainability: Membrane Solutions in the Circular EconomyView all 5 articles
Circular Economy (CE) Implementation Framework Development and Application to Reverse Osmosis (RO) Membrane Desalination Systems
Provisionally accepted
- 1African Membrane Society (AMSIC), a Ecole Nationale d’Ingénieurs du Mali Abderhamane Baba Touré, Mali, Bamako, Mali
- 2i2i Innovation MegaHub (i2iMegaHub), Accra, Ghana
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Circular economy (CE) is gaining attention globally given its potential to contribute significantly towards sustainable development. The demands for cleaner and safer water amid rising waterborne diseases and stringent environmental regulations are driving the need for reverse osmosis (RO) membranes desalination processes. RO membrane desalination processes are associated with extensive material and energy use with resulting waste generation and have ever-growing ecological footprints. Extensive theoretical knowledge on CE and sustainability exists, however, lacking the practical bridge to implementation. In this article, a structured and practical framework is developed and applied to RO membrane desalination system. Features of this framework allowed breaking RO membrane desalination system into phases of design (DP), manufacturing (MP), use (UP), and end-of-life (EoLP) and assessed against both 3R and 9R ladder strategic framework. The resulting CE and sustainability importance trend in the order of DP > MP > UP > EoLP, allowing for setting the initial implementation start point, phase(s) or stage(s) for prioritization and maximization to overcome some of the initial implementation challenges. This opens the door for continuous improvements and incremental progress to take on an entire circular or sustainability project in the long term. CE broken into implementation clusters of circular business models (CBM), resource efficiency strategies (RES) and regenerative sustainability practices (RSP), assessed against each of DP, MP, UP, and EoLP offered valuable insights in myriads of opportunities associated with RO membrane desalination system CE implementation. The framework provides step-by-step guidance to bridge the gap between CE and sustainability theoretical knowledge and practical implementations for industrial adoption to reap the countless opportunities.
Keywords: Circular economy implementation, Circular Economy Implementation Framework, Circular Economy Implementation Guidance, Circular business model (CBM), resource efficiency strategies (RES), regenerative sustainability practices (RSP), R- Ladder Strategies Application, Reverse Osmosis (RO) Membrane Desalination
Received: 02 Apr 2025; Accepted: 30 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Anim-Mensah. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Alexander R. Anim-Mensah, i2imegahub@gmail.com
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