Performance of forward osmosis hollow fiber membrane modules for pressure retarded osmosis

摘要

There have been many reports on renewable energy technologies. One of the technologies is pressure-retarded osmosis (PRO) power generation. PRO uses the energy of the salinity gradient between draw solution (e.g., seawater) and feed solution (e.g., river water) through a forward osmosis (FO) membrane. The theoretical dissipated energy could be equivalent to a waterfall of 270 m for river water and seawater mixing. PRO has some features that less environmental impact and stable power supply in comparison with solar and wind power generation. There have been many reports on the evaluation of the power density of PRO test cell [1,2]. However, almost all of the studies were used a small size of flat-sheet membranes and hollow fiber membrane cell [3]. To practical application, the evaluation of PRO performance for large-scale membrane modules is needed. In this study, we have set up an evaluation system for a large-scale membrane module and examined the power density of FO modules under PRO mode.