Transport of particles through RO membrane in steady state condition

Abstract

Reverse Osmosis (RO) membranes are widespread nowadays for separating solvent from a solution. Experiments show that changes in relative interaction of solvent and solute with RO membrane matrix lead to changes in solvent permeation, solute rejection and fouling. Here we study microscopically separation of binary mixture through RO polymeric membrane using Molecular Dynamics simulation. We find better solvent permeation and solute rejection with increasing interaction between solute and membrane but fouling by solute inside the membrane increases. We also find that stronger solvent membrane interaction reduces fouling but with concomitant poorer solvent permeation and solute rejection.