The design of nanosheets interlayer between the substrate and polyamide layer has attracted growing attention to improve the performance of thin-film composite membranes. However, the membrane size is limited by current fabrication methods such as vacuum filtration. Herein, a high-performance MXene (Ti3C2T x ) interlayered polyamide forward osmosis (FO) membrane is fabricated based on a combination of a facile and scalable brush-coating of MXene on nylon substrates and the interfacial polymerization process. The as-prepared FO membrane shows high water permeability of 31.8 L m–2 h–1 and low specific salt flux of 0.27 g L–1 using 2.0 mol L–1 sodium chloride as the draw solution. This is attributed to the adjustment of substrate properties and the polyamide layer by coating of MXene as well as the facilitation of water transportation by the interlayer distances between Ti3C2T x . The membrane also exhibits a good organic solvent forward osmosis performance with high ethanol flux as 9.5 L m–2 h–1 and low specific salt flux of 0.4 g L–1 using 2.0 mol L–1 lithium chloride as the draw solution. Moreover, the MXene interlayered FO membrane demonstrates a feasible application in real seawater desalination and industrial textile wastewater treatment. This work presents an effective approach to fabricating nanomaterials interlayered FO membranes with superior performance for both desalination and organic solvent recovery.

The current situation with the problems associated with the removal of oil from wastewaters by membranes is being explored. Many types of membranes have been investigated-organic polymers, inorganic or ceramic species and hybrids of the two. Polymeric membranes can be designed to facilitate the passage of oil, but the more successful approach is with hydrophilic types that encourage the passage of water. Ceramic membranes have an advantage here as they are less often irreversibly fouled and give a higher recovery of oil, with a lower flux decline. Furthermore, they can be cleaned up by a simple heating procedure. More attention should be given to understanding the mechanism of fouling so that operating conditions can be optimised to further reduce fouling and further decrease the flux decline, as well as assisting in the design of antifouling membranes. Another obstacle to ceramic membrane use is the high cost of manufacture. Cheaper starting materials such as clays have been surveyed.

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Novel TFN-FO membranes with improved water flux have been synthesized by adding C60@PAF900 into the organic phase of interfacial polymerization.