Fouling in Forward Osmosis Process

                                                                                             Fouling in Forward Osmosis Process

Minmin Zhang, Chuyang Y. Tang

School of Civil and Environmental Engineering & Singapore Membrane Technology Center, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639798, Singapore

 

Forward osmosis (FO) is a process where a semi-permeable dense membrane separates a low concentration feed solution (FS) and a high concentration draw solution (DS). FO has gained much interest for water treatment and energy production in recent years. In this study, we evaluated the FO fouling behaviors under various operation conditions.  The FO performance will be compared and analyzed followed with the fouling mechanisms discussion.  All this observations can be used to optimize the membrane system design and also help to eliminate fouling. In addition, the performance of fouling behavior in pressure retarded osmosis (PRO) will be compared. In PRO process water flows from a low concentration FS to a high concentration DS against a hydraulic pressure which may result in different fouling mechanisms with FO fouling process.