Fouling limitations of osmotic pressure‐driven processes and its remedial strategies: A review

Abstract

The scarcity of freshwater is one of the major challenges to the civilized community around the World. So, the various engineered processes have been developed for the remediation of this problem such as osmotic pressure-driven processes (OPDPs). OPDPs includes forward osmosis and pressure retarded osmosis, which have gained enormous attention and becoming a flexible membrane-based technology for desalination and wastewater treatment. The most significant components of the OPDPs to be efficient are the membranes and the draw solution. Although numerous studies highlighted the membrane fouling and concentration polarization are one of the critical parameters to assess the system efficiency in the OPDPs and other pressure driven membrane processes. This study delivers an up-to-date review of the OPDPs in terms of concentration polarization, membrane fouling (organic, inorganic, and biofouling), foulant interactions, remedial strategies, monitoring and characterization techniques, and future directions of research. Numerous foulant interactions are also elaborated for the OPDPs in the field of the membrane separation technique. State of the art in antifouling membrane fabrication methods are critically reviewed along with different remedial strategies for fouled membranes in OPDPs.

(3-Aminopropyl)trimethoxysilane-Functionalized Titanium Dioxide Thin-Film Nanocomposite Membrane: Enhanced Rejection Performance for Unary and Binary High-Salt Wastewater

“…The loading of modified TiO 2 nanoparticles reduced reverse solute flux while increasing their selectivity. According to the solution diffusion theory, the solute flux is proportional to the solute rejection coefficient R , , meaning higher solute rejection leads to lower solute flux. Therefore, all prepared and modified FO membranes exhibited excellent performance in terms of both water and solute flux.…”

Preparation of PVDF/TMKH‐550 composite membrane and its adsorption performance for ammonia nitrogen wastewater

“…After that, Replace the deionized water with 1.0 g L −1 BSA solution and weigh the permeate in the same way，BSA has been widely used as a model contaminant to evaluate the antifouling ability of membranes 36 . The membrane was cleaned with phosphate buffer solution (PBS, pH = 7.4) for 30 min, and the pure water flux () was measured again.…”

“…After that, Replace the deionized water with 1.0 g L À1 BSA solution and weigh the permeate in the same way， BSA has been widely used as a model contaminant to evaluate the antifouling ability of membranes. 36 The membrane was cleaned with phosphate buffer solution (PBS, pH = 7.4) for 30 min, and the pure water flux (J W ) was measured again. Every membrane repeated three cycles to assess the anti-fouling performance, the flux recovery ratio (FRR), total fouling ratio (R t ), reversible fouling ratio (R r ), and irreversible fouling ratio (R ir ) values were obtained based on the following equation:…”

Effect of titanium oxide/reduced graphene (TiO2/rGO) addition onto water flux and reverse salt diffusion thin-film nanocomposite forward osmosis membranes

“… Improved mechanical strength: The membrane’s mechanical strength could also be improved through the loading of inorganic NPs, resulting in it being more resistant to compaction and deformation under high-pressure conditions. This can help maintain the membrane’s performance over extended periods (Pal et al 2015 , Singh et al 2023 ). Reduced fouling: Incorporating inorganic NPs might reduce fouling and expand membrane lifetime by decreasing excessive foulant development over the membrane, the outer layer.…”

“…Improved mechanical strength: The membrane’s mechanical strength could also be improved through the loading of inorganic NPs, resulting in it being more resistant to compaction and deformation under high-pressure conditions. This can help maintain the membrane’s performance over extended periods (Pal et al 2015 , Singh et al 2023 ).…”