Novel dual-stage FO system for sustainable protein enrichment using nanoparticles as intermediate draw solutes

Feasibility of Poly (Vinyl Alcohol)/Poly (Diallyldimethylammonium Chloride) Polymeric Network Hydrogel as Draw Solute for Forward Osmosis Process

Forward osmosis (FO) has been identified as an emerging technology for the concentration and crystallization of aqueous solutions at low temperatures. However, the application of the FO process has been limited due to the unavailability of a suitable draw solute. An ideal draw solute should be able to generate high osmotic pressure and must be easily regenerated with less reverse solute flux (RSF). Recently, hydrogels have attracted attention as a draw solution due to their high capacity to absorb water and low RSF. This study explores a poly (vinyl alcohol)/poly (diallyldimethylammonium chloride) (PVA-polyDADMAC) polymeric network hydrogel as a draw solute in forward osmosis. A low-pressure reverse osmosis (RO) membrane was used in the FO process to study the performance of the hydrogel prepared in this study as a draw solution. The robust and straightforward gel synthesis method provides an extensive-scale application. The results indicate that incorporating cationic polyelectrolyte poly (diallyldimethylammonium chloride) into the polymeric network increases swelling capacity and osmotic pressure, thereby resulting in an average water flux of the PVA-polyDADMAC hydrogel (0.97 L m−2 h−1) that was 7.47 times higher than the PVA hydrogel during a 6 h FO process against a 5000 mg L−1 NaCl solution (as a feed solution). The effect of polymer and cross-linker composition on swelling capacity was studied to optimize the synthesized hydrogel composition. At 50 °C, the hydrogel releases nearly >70% of the water absorbed during the FO process at room temperatures, and water flux can be recovered by up to 86.6% of the initial flux after 12 hydrogel (draw solute) regenerations. Furthermore, this study suggests that incorporating cationic polyelectrolytes into the polymeric network enhances FO performances and lowers the actual energy requirements for (draw solute) regeneration. This study represents a significant step toward the commercial implementation of a hydrogel-driven FO system for the concentration of liquid-food extract.

Coupling solar-driven interfacial evaporation with forward osmosis for continuous water treatment

Forward osmosis (FO) driven by osmotic pressure difference has great potential in water treatment. However, it remains a challenge to maintain a steady water flux at continuous operation. Herein, a FO and photothermal evaporation (PE) coupling system (FO-PE) based on high-performance polyamide FO membrane and photothermal polypyrrole nano-sponge (PPy/sponge) is developed for continuous FO separation with a steady water flux. The PE unit with a photothermal PPy/sponge floating on the surface of draw solution (DS) can continuously in situ concentrate DS by solar-driven interfacial water evaporation, which effectively offsets the dilution effect due to the injected water from FO unit. A good balance between the permeated water in FO and the evaporated water in PE can be established by coordinately regulating the initial concentration of DS and light intensity. As a consequence, the polyamide FO membrane exhibits a steady water flux of 11.7 L m-2 h-1 over time under FO coupling PE condition, effectively alleviating the decline in water flux under FO alone. Additionally, it shows a low reverse salt flux of 3 g m-2 h-1. The FO-PE coupling system utilizing clean and renewable solar energy to achieve a continuous FO separation is significantly meaningful for practical applications.

Emerging forward osmosis and membrane distillation for liquid food concentration: A review

As emerging membrane technologies, forward osmosis (FO) and membrane distillation (MD), which work with novel driving forces, show great potential for liquid food concentration, owing to their low fouling propensity and great driving force. In the last decades, they have attracted the attention of food industry scientists in global scope. However, discussions of the FO and MD in liquid food concentration advancement, membrane fouling, and economic assessment have been scant. This review aims to provide an up-to-date knowledge about liquid food concentration by FO and MD. First, we introduce the principle and applications of FO and MD in liquid food concentration, and highlight the effect of process on liquid food composition, membrane fouling mechanism, and strategies for fouling mitigation. Besides, economic assessment of FO and MD processes is reviewed. Moreover, the challenges as well as future prospects of FO and MD applied in liquid food concentration are proposed and discussed. Comparing with conventional membrane-based or thermal-based technologies, FO and MD show outstanding advantages in high concentration rate, good concentrate quality, low fouling propensity, and low cost. Future efforts for liquid food concentration by FO and MD include (1) development of novel FO draw solution (DS); (2) understanding the effects of liquid food complex compositions on membrane fouling in FO and MD concentration process; and (3) fabrication of novel membranes and innovation of membrane module and process configuration for liquid food processing.

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

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.

Recent Developments and Future Challenges of Hydrogels as Draw Solutes in Forward Osmosis Process

Forward osmosis (FO) has been recently regarded as a promising water treatment technology due to its lower energy consumption and lower membrane fouling propensity compared to the reverse osmosis (RO). The absence of suitable draw solute constraints the wide-range application of the FO. Hydrogels are three-dimensional hydrophilic polymer networks that can absorb a huge amount of water. Particularly, stimuli-responsive polymer hydrogels can undergo a reversible volume change or solution-gel phase transition in response to external environmental stimuli, including temperature, light, pressure, solvent composition, and pH. These intrinsic properties indicate the lowest regeneration cost of draw solutes compared to the thermal method and other membrane processes. This review aims to introduce the research progress on hydrogels as draw solutes, clarify the existing problems and point out the further research direction.

Unlocking the application potential of forward osmosis through integrated/hybrid process

Study of forward osmosis (FO) has been increasing steadily over recent years with applications mainly focusing on desalination and wastewater treatment processes. The working mechanism of FO lies in the natural movement of water between two streams with different osmotic pressure, which makes it useful in concentrating or diluting solutions. FO has rarely been operated as a stand-alone process. Instead, FO processes often appear in a hybrid or integrated form where FO is combined with other treatment technologies to achieve better overall process performance and cost savings. This article aims to provide a comprehensive review on the need for hybridization/integration for FO membrane processes, with emphasis given to process enhancement, draw solution regeneration, and pretreatment for FO fouling mitigation. In general, integrated/hybrid FO processes can reduce the membrane fouling propensity; prepare the solution suitable for subsequent value-added uses and production of renewable energy; lower the costs associated with energy consumption; enhance the quality of treated water; and enable the continuous operation of FO through the regeneration of draw solution. The future potential of FO lies in the success of how it can be hybridized or integrated with other technologies to minimize its own shortcomings, while enhancing the overall performance.

Membrane Separation in Organic Liquid: Technologies, Achievements, and Opportunities

Membrane technology is one of the most promising technologies for separation and purification that is routinely and commercially employed in aqueous solutions. In comparison, its applications in organic solvents are severely underdeveloped mainly due to the poor stability of traditional polymer membranes in organic solvents. The emerging materials such as crosslinked polymers, covalent organic frameworks, metal-organic frameworks, conjugated microporous polymers, carbon molecular sieves, and graphene provide the solutions to address this problem. The membranes constructed with these novel materials show outstanding separation performance in regard to both high selectivity and solvent permeability, greatly pushing forward utilization of membrane technology in organic media. Here, an overview of the most important organic mixtures that need to be separated, the major separation processes adopted nowadays in organic solvents, and the recent progress in new developed membranes is provided.

Recent Advance on Draw Solutes Development in Forward Osmosis

In recent years, membrane technologies have been developed to address water shortage and energy crisis. Forward osmosis (FO), as an emerging membrane-based water treatment technology, employs an extremely concentrated draw solution (DS) to draw water pass through the semi-permeable membrane from a feed solution. DS as a critical material in FO process plays a key role in determining separation performance and energy cost. Most of existing DSs after FO still require a regeneration step making its return to initial state. Therefore, selecting suitable DS with low reverse solute, high flux, and easy regeneration is critical for improving FO energy efficiency. Numerous novel DSs with improved performance and lower regeneration cost have been developed. However, none reviews reported the categories of DS based on the energy used for recovery up to now, leading to the lack of enough awareness of energy consumption in DS regeneration. This review will give a comprehensive overview on the existing DSs based on the types of energy utilized for DS regeneration. DS categories based on different types of energy used for DS recovery, mainly including direct use based, chemical energy based, waste heat based, electric energy based, magnetic field energy based, and solar energy based are proposed. The respective benefits and detriments of the majority of DS are addressed respectively according to the current reported literatures. Finally, future directions of energy applied to DS recovery are also discussed.

Synthetic polymer materials for forward osmosis (FO) membranes and FO applications: a review

Forward osmosis (FO) has played an important role in alleviating the problems caused by freshwater shortage and water contamination in recent years. However, issues of low water permeability, reverse solute diffusion, concentration polarization and membrane fouling are still widely present in FO processes. These challenges are the current research focus in exploring novel FO membranes. Fabricating FO membranes from chemically modified commercial polymers is a relatively novel approach and has proven effective in obtaining appropriate FO membranes. This paper focuses on the progress of FO membranes made specially from chemically modified polymer materials. First of all, a brief overview of commercial polymers commonly used for FO membrane fabrication is provided. Secondly, the chemical modification strategies and synthesis routes of novel polymer materials as well as the resultant FO membrane performance are presented. The strengths and weaknesses of chemical modifications on polymer materials are assessed. Then, typical FO applications facilitated by the FO membranes made from modified polymer materials are exemplified. Finally, challenges and future directions in exploring novel polymers through chemical modifications for FO membrane fabrication are highlighted. This review may provide new insights into the future advancement of both novel membrane materials and FO membranes.

Synthetic draw solutes for forward osmosis: status and future

Forward osmosis (FO) has developed rapidly over the past decade. The development of draw solutes, a key component of FO processes, has also progressed remarkably. A wide range of synthetic draw solutes have been explored in recent years. Synthetic draw solutes exhibit superiority over the conventional draw solutes obtained commercially in terms of lower reverse solute fluxes and less energy consumption in draw solute recycling. However, there are still some big challenges for synthetic draw solutes, such as complicated synthetic procedures, low water fluxes, severe concentration polarization (CP) and decreased water recovery efficiency when recycled draw solutes are reused in FO. These challenges are also the current research focus on the exploration of novel draw solutes. This article aims to review the recent progress especially on synthetic draw solutes. Their design strategies, synthesis routes and FO performance are assessed. Some representative applications involving the synthetic draw solutes-facilitated FO processes are exemplified. The advantages and disadvantages of the existing synthetic draw solutions are evaluated. The challenges and future directions in exploring novel draw solutes are highlighted.

Electrolysis-assisted mitigation of reverse solute flux in a three-chamber forward osmosis system

Forward osmosis (FO) has been widely studied for desalination or water recovery from wastewater, and one of its key challenges for practical applications is reverse solute flux (RSF). RSF can cause loss of draw solutes, salinity build-up and undesired contamination at the feed side. In this study, in-situ electrolysis was employed to mitigate RSF in a three-chamber FO system ("e-FO") with Na₂SO₄ as a draw solute and deionized (DI) water as a feed. Operation parameters including applied voltage, membrane orientation and initial draw concentrations were systematically investigated to optimize the e-FO performance and reduce RSF. Applying a voltage of 1.5 V achieved a RSF of 6.78 ± 0.55 mmol m^-2 h^-1 and a specific RSF of 0.138 ± 0.011 g L^-1 in the FO mode and with 1 M Na₂SO₄ as the draw, rendering ∼57% reduction of solute leakage compared to the control without the applied voltage. The reduced RSF should be attributed to constrained ion migration induced by the coactions of electric dragging force (≥1.5 V) and high solute rejection of the FO membrane. Reducing the intensity of the solution recirculation from 60 to 10 mL min^-1 significantly reduced specific energy consumption of the e-FO system from 0.693 ± 0.127 to 0.022 ± 0.004 kWh m^-3 extracted water or from 1.103 ± 0.059 to 0.044 ± 0.002 kWh kg^-1 reduced reversed solute. These results have demonstrated that the electrolysis-assisted RSF mitigation could be an energy-efficient method for controlling RSF towards sustainable FO applications.

Exploration of polyepoxysuccinic acid as a novel draw solution in the forward osmosis process

Polyepoxysuccinic acid (PESA) is a green corrosion scale inhibitor.

Oxalic acid complexes: promising draw solutes for forward osmosis (FO) in protein enrichment

Efficient protein enrichment was achieved through novel oxalic acid complex promoted forward osmosis membrane technology.

Ferric and cobaltous hydroacid complexes for forward osmosis (FO) processes

Cupric and ferric hydroacid complexes have proven their advantages as draw solutes in forward osmosis in terms of high water fluxes, negligible reverse solute fluxes and easy recovery (Ge and Chung, 2013. Hydroacid complexes: A new class of draw solutes to promote forward osmosis (FO) processes. Chemical Communications 49, 8471-8473.). In this study, cobaltous hydroacid complexes were explored as draw solutes and compared with the ferric hydroacid complex to study the factors influencing their FO performance. The solutions of the cobaltous complexes produce high osmotic pressures due to the presence of abundant hydrophilic groups. These solutes are able to dissociate and form a multi-charged anion and Na(+) cations in water. In addition, these complexes have expanded structures which lead to negligible reverse solute fluxes and provide relatively easy approaches in regeneration. These characteristics make the newly synthesized cobaltous complexes appropriate as draw solutes. The FO performance of the cobaltous and ferric-citric acid (Fe-CA) complexes were evaluated respectively through cellulose acetate membranes, thin-film composite membranes fabricated on polyethersulfone supports (referred as TFC-PES), and polybenzimidazole and PES dual-layer (referred as PBI/PES) hollow fiber membranes. Under the conditions of DI water as the feed and facing the support layer of TFC-PES FO membranes (PRO mode), draw solutions at 2.0 M produced relatively high water fluxes of 39-48 LMH (L m(-2) hr(-1)) with negligible reverse solute fluxes. A water flux of 17.4 LMH was achieved when model seawater of 3.5 wt.% NaCl replaced DI water as the feed and 2.0 M Fe-CA as the draw solution under the same conditions. The performance of these hydroacid complexes surpasses those of the synthetic draw solutes developed in recent years. This observation, along with the relatively easy regeneration, makes these complexes very promising as a novel class of draw solutes.

Thermoresponsive magnetic nanoparticles for seawater desalination

Thermoresponsive magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) as a class of smart materials that respond to a change in temperature may by used as a draw solute to extract water from brackish or seawater by forward osmosis (FO). A distinct advantage is the efficient regeneration of the draw solute and the recovery of water via heat-facilitated magnetic separation. However, the osmotic pressure attained by this type of draw solution is too low to counteract that of seawater. In this work, we have designed a FO draw solution based on multifunctional Fe3O4 nanoparticles grafted with copolymer poly(sodium styrene-4-sulfonate)-co-poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PSSS-PNIPAM). The resulting regenerable draw solution shows high osmotic pressure for seawater desalination. This is enabled by three essential functional components integrated within the nanostructure: (i) a Fe3O4 core that allows magnetic separation of the nanoparticles from the solvent, (ii) a thermoresponsive polymer, PNIPAM, that enables reversible clustering of the particles for further improved magnetic capturing at a temperature above its low critical solution temperature (LCST), and (iii) a polyelectrolyte, PSSS, that provides an osmotic pressure that is well above that of seawater.

State of the art of osmotic membrane bioreactors for water reclamation

In the last few years, extensive research has been dedicated to development of a novel osmotic membrane bioreactor (OMBR), which combines high-retention osmotic separation and biological reactions in a single vessel. Although promising results have been reported in the literature, some challenges associated with applications of OMBR remain unresolved at the present stage of development, including lack of a high performance forward osmosis (FO) membrane, identification of an ideal draw solute and effect of salt accumulation on biological activity. Therefore, this paper attempts to provide a comprehensive review of state of the art of OMBR for water and wastewater reclamation.

Exploration of polyelectrolytes as draw solutes in forward osmosis processes

The development of the forward osmosis (FO) process has been constrained by the slow development of appropriate draw solutions. Two significant concerns related to draw solutions are the draw solute leakage and intensive energy requirement in recycling draw solutes after the FO process. FO would be much attractive if there is no draw solute leakage and the recycle of draw solutes is easy and economic. In this study, polyelectrolytes of a series of polyacrylic acid sodium salts (PAA-Na), were explored as draw solutes in the FO process. The characteristics of high solubility in water and flexibility in structural configuration ensure the suitability of PAA-Na as draw solutes and their relative ease in recycle through pressure-driven membrane processes. The high water flux with insignificant salt leakage in the FO process and the high salt rejection in recycle processes reveal the superiority of PAA-Na to conventional ionic salts, such as NaCl, when comparing their FO performance via the same membranes. The repeatable performance of PAA-Na after recycle indicates the absence of any aggregation problems. The overall performance demonstrates that polyelectrolytes of PAA-Na series are promising as draw solutes, and the new concept of using polyelectrolytes as draw solutes in FO processes is applicable.