ACID TREATMENT ON THIN FILM COMPOSITE MEMBRANE SUPPORT TO ENHANCE WATER FLUX IN FORWARD OSMOSIS

摘要

Membrane-based desalination has been extensively explored to expand the access to affordable and safe drinking water. In the recent decade, forward osmosis has emerged as an attractive alternative to conventional reverse osmosis desalination due to some advantages in terms of lower energy consumption and less susceptibility towards fouling. However, despite these benefits, overcoming low water flux remain a challenge. Acid treatment of membrane support has shown to impart some desired characteristics for membrane separation performance. Compared to the control membrane, the acid treated membrane showed an increase in water flux from 1.48 to 2.77 L/m~2h (when active layer facing FS) and from 4.51 to 5.68 L/m~2h (when active layer facing draw solution) while retained small reverse solute flux.