Preparation of Hollow Fiber Membrane In Forward Osmosis

Forward osmosis (FO) is a potential and emerging low energy technology. This process can be resolved the water resource shortage and water pollution issues. Reverse osmosis (RO) process that already has considerable market needs to be operated at high pressure, which is at least osmotic pressure. Thus, its disadvantage is that it requires significant energy consumption. FO process that could resolve these problems unlike the RO is considered a latest research area that is gaining popularity fast since it requires small amount of energy.

 In this study, FO composite hollow fiber membrane was prepared for exclusive use of FO process. A support layer was fabricated with additive which enhanced hydrophilic. Polyamide (PA) was coated on a prepared polymer support layer through the interfacial polymerization reaction. A hydrophilic enhanced support layer may improve the joining between the PA layer and the support. Moreover, hydrophilic polymer was used to minimize water resistance. The purpose of this work was to evaluate the effect of membrane that additive enhanced hydrophilic. FO hollow fiber membrane was focused on the development for high flux and salt removal. As a result, the FO hollow fiber membrane showed good result to improve performances compared to hydrophobic membrane. The membrane with enhanced hydrophilic released about 5 times higher physical properties than hydrophobic membrane.