Because of the current water crisis worldwide, it is of great importance to find alternative sources of drinking water, such as sulfur water. This review analyses laboratory, pilot and industrial-scale technologies available for sulfate removal from water produced for human consumption, from naturally occurring sulfur water and that resulting from human activities. Most of them exceed 90% removal efficiencies. However, the concentrations treated in each study were different; some technologies evaluate concentrations below recommended limits (250 mg L⁻¹), while others evaluate much higher concentrations but require previous treatments. The technologies with higher energy requirements such as reverse osmosis and ion exchange have better removal efficiencies but require larger initial investments and have higher operational costs. Biological treatments, on the other hand, with lower energy and material requirements, are less expensive but require long retention times and depend on the season of the year and/or environmental conditions. Lastly, adsorption removal technologies fall in the middle, especially for energy requirements and operational costs and retention times. This review shows that although there are a variety of sulfate removal technologies suitable for use, there is still room for a novel methodology that removes sulfates from a wider range of concentrations more economically, more effectively and in less time than what is currently available.

中文翻译：

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饮用水中硫酸盐去除技术综述

由于当前全球范围内的水危机，寻找替代饮用水源（例如硫磺水）非常重要。本综述分析了可用于从供人类消费的水、天然存在的含硫水以及人类活动产生的水中去除硫酸盐的实验室、中试和工业规模的技术。其中大多数去除效率超过90%。然而，每项研究中处理的浓度都不同；一些技术评估的浓度低于推荐限值（250 mg L ^-1），而其他技术评估的浓度要高得多，但需要事先进行处理。反渗透、离子交换等能源需求较高的技术去除效率较好，但初始投资较大，运行成本较高。另一方面，生物处理的能源和材料要求较低，成本较低，但需要较长的保留时间，并且取决于一年中的季节和/或环境条件。最后，吸附去除技术处于中间位置，特别是在能源需求、运营成本和保留时间方面。这篇综述表明，尽管有多种适合使用的硫酸盐去除技术，但仍然存在一种新的方法，可以比目前可用的技术更经济、更有效、更短时间地从更广泛的浓度范围中去除硫酸盐。