Seawater Desalination: A Review of Forward Osmosis Technique, Its Challenges, and Future Prospects

Abstract

Currently over 845 million people are believed to be living under severe water scarcity, and an estimated 2.8 billion people across the globe are projected to come under serious water scarcity by the year 2025, according to a United Nations (UN) report. Seawater desalination has gained more traction as the solution with the most potential for increasing global freshwater supplies amongst other solutions. However, the economic and energy costs associated with the major desalination technologies are considered intrinsically prohibitive largely due to their humongous energy requirements alongside the requirements of complex equipment and their maintenance in most cases. Whilst forward osmosis (FO) is being touted as a potentially more energy efficient and cost-effective alternative desalination technique, its efficiency is challenged by draw solutes and the draw solutes recovery step in FO applications alongside other challenges. This paper looks at the present situation of global water scarcity, and a brief leap into the major desalination technologies employed. A closer look at the key drivers of FO as a seawater desalination technique in their individual domain and its outlook as an technology are further highlighted.

Shale Oil and Gas Produced Water Treatment: Opportunities and Barriers for Forward Osmosis

“…The IP method is used to fabricate a thin polyamide layer as the active layer. The TFC membranes fabricated via IP have shown high salt rejection and high water permeability capabilities [43]. The IP methodology creates a thin film by dissolving two highly reactive monomers into two immiscible liquids, which in turn causes a reaction [43,44].…”

“…The TFC membranes fabricated via IP have shown high salt rejection and high water permeability capabilities [43]. The IP methodology creates a thin film by dissolving two highly reactive monomers into two immiscible liquids, which in turn causes a reaction [43,44]. The monomers used in IP are usually nucleophile reactants (typically multi-functional amines) and electrophile reactants (typically multi-functional acid chlorides) [43,45].…”

“…The IP methodology creates a thin film by dissolving two highly reactive monomers into two immiscible liquids, which in turn causes a reaction [43,44]. The monomers used in IP are usually nucleophile reactants (typically multi-functional amines) and electrophile reactants (typically multi-functional acid chlorides) [43,45]. The most popular monomers used are m-phenylenediamine (MPD) and trimesoyl chloride (TMC) [45].…”

Hybrid renewable energy/hybrid desalination potentials for remote areas: selected cases studied in Egypt

“…2b shows the world-wide use of the various desalination technologies using solar power sources. 7,36 Share of globally installed water desalination technologies coupled with renewable power sources shows an accumulated desalination capacity of about 1-2% of the total water desalination with 40% contribution from RO-PV systems.…”

“…Neglecting, however, challenges associated with the conversion, storage and utilization of RE resources coupled with the operation and maintenance issues thereof, with the attendant critical implications on the overall water production, would be nothing less than unthinkable. 7 In the following sections, a general review of the desalination systems is given and followed by a survey of the RE-driven desalination systems. An in-depth discussion of challenges facing the use of RE in desalination is then given with emphasis on desalination systems in the MENA region and special attention will be paid to Egypt for raising hybrid RE systems driving hybrid desalination technologies.…”