Cellulose Acetate Reverse Osmosis Membranes for Desalination:A Short Review

摘要

Freshwater scarcity is a critical challenge that human society has to face in the 21st century.Desalination of seawater by reverse osmosis(RO)membranes was regarded as the most promising technology to overcome the challenge given that plenty of potential fresh water resources in oceans.However,the requirements for high desalination efficiency in terms of permeation flux and rejection rate become the bottle-neck which needs to be broken down by developing novel RO membranes with new structure and composition.Cellulose acetate RO membranes exhibited long durability,chlorine resistance,and outstanding desalination efficiency that are worthy of being recalled to address the current shortcomings brought by polyamide RO membranes.In terms of performance enhancement,it is also important to use new ideas and to develop new strategies to modify cellulose acetate RO membranes in response to those complex challenges.Therefore,we focused on the state of the art cellulose acetate RO membranes and discussed the strategies on membrane structural manipulation adjusted by either phase separation or additives,which offered anti-fouling,anti-bacterial,anti-chlorine,durability,and thermo-mechanical properties to the modified membranes associated with the desalination performance,i.e.,permeation flux and rejection rate.The relationship between membrane structure and desalination efficiency was investigated and established to guide the development of cellulose acetate RO membranes for desalination.