Recovery of sulfur dioxide from gas emissions using a membrane device instead of technology based on dispersive absorption (e.g. scrubbers) is considered as an alternative to reduce environmental impacts and costs associated to solvent losses. The technical viability has been demonstrated in the recent literature but an economic estimation has to be performed in order to evaluate the application of these processes in an industrial scale. This work considers a ceramic hollow fibre membrane contactor as membrane device to recover sulfur dioxide from gas streams. In addition to the technical considerations, environmental and economic issues are discussed in order to include these aspects in the decision making for industrial application. The economic estimation is carried out in terms of investment and operating costs and it is observed that the industrial application is strongly dependent on the environmental restrictions and the concentration of sulfur dioxide at the inlet of the membrane device. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.