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Forward osmosis (FO) has received considerable interest for water and energy-related applications in recent years. However, FO has not been commercialized yet because of a few reasons. The lack of a high-performance FO membrane is one of the important barriers. To overcome this issue, a novel high-performance thin-film composite (TFC) membrane was successfully fabricated via interfacial polymerization with poly-L-lysine incorporated polysulfone substrate (PSf). Compared to the pristine PSf substrate, the incorporation of lysine (ranging 1 – 15 wt.%) meaningfully alternates the substrates chemical structure, porosity, contact angle, and morphology leading to an enhancement of the lysine -TFC membranes performance. The results showed that the new substrates with higher porosity, more hydrophilic, and smaller in pore size after the introduction of L-lysine. The membrane achieved the highest FO water flux at 15% concentration of lysine and the maximum FO water flux was 35 L/m2.h (LMH) with a comparable specific salt flux (Js/Jw) of 0.002 g/L in the active layer facing the feed side (AL-FS) when 1M NaCl was applied as draw solution. The water flux was increased with increasing concentration of lysine. The addition of poly-L-Lysine in casting solution resulted in a more porous and hydrophilic support layer.

Microplastics (MPs) are of emerging widespread concern, but amount of research done in freshwater environments and organisms is scarce compared to that in marine environments. Thus, the MPs identification in four freshwater fish at four districts of Bac Ninh  province were documented, including common carp (Cyprynus carpio), grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella), tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus), and red-tilapia (Oreochromis sp.). MPs were found in the gastrointestinal tracts (GIT) of 100% of examined fish. MPs abundances have significant differences between all freshwater fish collected from ponds and local markets (except for red-tilapia), while no difference by individual of each species neither in pond nor in local markets. The median sizes of microplastics ranged from 1410 µm to 2706 µm. The MPs were dominated by purple in color (in pond with average 38%; in local market with average 33%). µ-FTIR analysis showed that polymers found in fish GIT mainly were polyethylene terephthalate, polyethylene, polypropylene and nylon. These results showed that the microplastics was widely ingested by freshwater fish and help to aware people which fish are more contaminated with MPs to human consumption in Bac Ninh province.