Exploring Anaerobic Membrane Bioreactors for Sustainable Wastewater Treatment: Performance Assessment and Emerging Challenges

Anaerobic membrane bioreactors (AnMBRs) have become recognised as a promising technology for wastewater treatment due to their advantages over conventional aerobic systems, including lower energy consumption, reduced sludge production and biogas production. However, despite extensive research on AnMBRs, there is a lack of comprehensive reviews that evaluates their strengths and challenges, particularly in optimizing process stability, cost-effectiveness, and long-term membrane performance across diverse wastewater conditions. Additionally, existing studies have not thoroughly explored how integrating AnMBRs with advanced resource recovery strategies could improve their economic feasibility. This paper presents a critical review of AnMBR performance, challenges, and future prospects in wastewater treatment. It systematically examines recent advancements in AnMBR configurations, operational approaches, and hybrid system integration, drawing insights from current literature to identify opportunities for enhancing AnMBR efficiency and sustainability.