• Membrane Journal
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.367-372
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• 2015

In pressure-retarded osmosis (PRO) and forward osmosis (FO) processes, solvent (permeate) flux depends on which surface the draw solution faces. There are two operation modes. PRO mode indicates that the active layer faces the draw solution, and FO mode means that the porous substrate fronts the draw stream. It is often observed that the PRO mode produces higher flux than that of FO under the same operating conditions. The current work uses the method of proof by contradiction, and mathematically proves the intrinsic flux inequality between the two modes.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.136-141
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• 2014

In this study, cellulose acetate (CA) membrane was prepared by phase inversion precipitation and then evaluated the forward osmosis (FO) membrane performance. Differences in water flux and salt rejection between RO and FO with prepared membranes were observed. The different structure membranes were prepared with various solvent which evaluate the influence of membrane structure on permeability. The structure of the prepared membrane was confirmed through scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and the permeability changes were estimated using the bench-scale FO test equipment.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.222-227
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to prepare forward osmosis (FO) membranes using a variety of cellulose-based polymers and to evaluate the performance of difference depending on each of the polymers and additives. Forward osmosis membranes based on cellulose acetate (CA) and cellulose triacetate (CTA) were prepared through phase inversion. The performance of FO membranes developed, such as flux and salt rejection, was compared under the osmotically- and pressure-driven conditions. In CA FO membranes, the execution time of solvent evaporation and membrane annealing induced the change in membrane performance. But the performance of CTA FO membrane was improved by using additives rather than annealing. Moreover, the flux of CTA FO membrane was $4.46\;L/m^2hr$ but that of CA/CTA FO membrane was $8.89\;L/m^2hr$ in FO mode. The CTA FO membrane with blending CA was more efficient to increase FO permeate flow rather than using a single polymer membrane.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.235-240
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• 2010

The aim of this paper is to evaluate and compare the performances of forward osmosis (FO) membranes using different materials. The FO membranes were synthesized using interfacial polymerization method on hydrophobic polysulfone (PSf) and relatively hydrophilic polyethersulfone (PES) supports. The FO performance such as flux and back diffusion was measured. The resulting fluxes of PSf and PES FO membranes were $4.3\;L/m^2hr$ and $17.8\;L/m^2hr$, respectively. The flux of the PES FO membrane was higher than that of the PSf FO membrane. The results indicated that hydrophillictity of the support membrane is important for increasing flux in FO process. Moreover, with decreasing the support layer thickness, flux increased considerably.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.391-400
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• 2016

In this work, novel thin film composite (TFC) forward osmosis (FO) membranes are developed via interfacial polymerization on the polysulfone (PS) substrate, using TEOS as the a sol-gel reagent to form hydrophilic interlayer polymer between PS and polyamide (PA). The PS substrate was cast on a very thin polyester nonwoven to reduce membrane resistance. With the incorporation of TEOS (tetraethoxy silane) polymer in the interface between PS and PA, the formed TFC FO membrane exhibits better hydrophilicity and improved water flux, and therefore superior membrane performance. By changing the polymerization sequence of PA interfacial polymerization and TEOS sol-gel condensation, the surface properties and performance of FO membranes are changed significantly. The permeability of FO membranes were estimated using the bench-scale FO test equipment. The distribution of the polysiloxane on composite membrane and morphology are also studied with FE-SEM and EDAX. The PS_PA_TEOS membrane showed highly enhanced water flux (79.2 LMH) but reverse salt flux (RSF) value (7.10 GMH) also increased. However, the flux of PS_TEOS_PA membrane increased moderately (54.1 LMH) without increasing RSF value (1.60 GMH) compare with PS_PA membrane.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.251-256
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• 2013

In this study, acetylated methyl cellulose (AMC) was successfully used as a support layer of thin film composite (TFC) forward osmosis (FO) membrane. A selective polyamide active layer, interfacially polymerized, was coated on top of various substrate layers. The structure and performance of the TFC FO membrane based on the AMC substrate were compared with those of TFC FO membranes with different polymeric support layers. The experimental results showed that the AMC FO membrane performance was better than other FO membranes due to its characteristic morphology and lower back diffusion rate of salts.

• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.38 no.5
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• pp.626-631
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• 2014

Water purification requires a large amount of energy that can cause pollution problems. For this reason, forward osmosis (FO) has attracted intense interest that required a relatively low amount of energy for water purification. The forward osmosis has a serious problem that it needs drawing agents creating osmotic pressure to extract water from contaminated water. In this study, a copolymer of zwitterionic moiety and an interpenetrating polymer network (IPN) hydrogel based on thermo-responsive polymer hydrogel, poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) were prepared and attached on FO membranes, which successfully played the role of drawing agents. In the copolymer hydrogel, its swelling ratio was improved, but thermo-sensitivity was decreased. The swelling ratio and thermo-sensitivity of IPN hydrogel was lowered. We could confirm that swelling ratio is related to osmotic pressure.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.187-196
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• 2016

Pressure-assisted forward osmosis (PAFO) process has recently been under spotlight for its potential to improve forward osmosis (FO) process performance by applying low hydraulic pressure on the feed side. Structure parameter, one of the governing factors in estimating water flux and solute flux across FO membranes in the solution-diffusion model (S-D model), determines solute resistivity in FO and PAFO processes. This study aims to estimate the trend of structure parameter change with respect to varying additional hydraulic pressure condition in PAFO.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.132-143
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• 2015

Water is an essential resource for humans, but fresh water becomes scarce due to population growth and contamination of limited resources. Membrane technology has been widely used for water treatment, and forward osmosis is a process which does not need high hydraulic pressure for the operation. However, there are needs for (1) development of novel draw solutes causing low internal concentration polarization and reverse salt flux for high water flux, and (2) development of economic recovery method of the draw solutes in the diluted draw solution. Previous researches on the draw solute include $NaHCO_3$ which can be regenerated by about $60^{\circ}C$ heating, sucrose which can make potable water without additional process, and magnetic nanoparticles which can be regenerated by external magnetic field. Using the principles of forward osmosis process, sea water desalination, wastewater treatment, refinement of proteins, energy generation using pressure retarded osmosis process, preparation of diluted fertilizer, and growing algae for biofuel can be conducted. This paper summarizes characteristics of ideal draw solutes, recovery method of the draw solutes, and various application examples.

• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.103-108
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• 2008

Osmotic pellet, which consisted of water-swellable seed layer, drug layer, and porous membrane layer, has been widely utilized in oral drug delivery system. In this work, we describe the preparation of osmotic pellet with nifedipine as model drug and a mixture of cellulose acetate (CA) and Eudragit RS as membrane layer, and then examined the drug release behavior on the variation of the thickness change of membrane layer (CA and Eudragit RS) and release media. Furthermore, we examined the nifedipine release behavior using sodium alginate as a potential membrane candidate. Osmotic pellet was obtained in the quantitative yield by fluidized bed coater. Osmotic pellet exhibited the round morphology and the size ranging $1500{\sim}1700{\mu}m$ in SEM. The nifedipine release decreased as the thickness of membrane layer (CA and Eudragit RS) increased. In addition, it observed that there is difference of release amount in between intestinal juice (pH 6.8) and gastric juice (pH 1.2). In the case of osmotic pellet coated with sodium alginate, nifedipine release behavior depended on the crosslinking of sodium alginate layer. In conclusion, we found that various membrane layers could control the release amount of nifedipine.