Evaluation of forward osmosis membrane modules and modeling of their transport behavior

The increasing demand of freshwater worldwide pushes forward the research through the implementation of innovative water treatment technologies. Membrane-based separation systems represent potential solutions. Nowadays, reverse osmosis (RO) is widely applied to extract high-quality water from complex aqueous streams with high TDS concentration. However, RO still represents an expensive technology which requires considerable amount of energy . During the last decades, innovative membrane solutions were proposed. In particular, Forward Osmosis (FO) can be considered among the most promising treatment solutions, thanks to its low energy requirement, low maintenance and easy operation. However, forward osmosis is still an emerging technology and research must be conducted to analyse its feasible application and process performance. Moreover, innovative membranes have been fabricated during the last years of research, with the aim to enhance the FO system performance. In this context, this study is proposing a new method for the determination and characterization of FO membrane parameters and potential system performance. Specifically, forward osmosis experiments were performed to compare an innovative biomimetic membrane in both FO and RO mode. Two laboratory set ups were designed and fabricated to perform forward osmosis and reverse osmosis experiments. Finally, based on the experimental results, different mass transport equations were used to develop a mathematical model to describe and to generalize the membrane characterization method.