A new biomimetic aquaporin thin film composite membrane for forward osmosis: Characterization and performance assessment

Cellulose acetate (CA) and thin film composite (TFC) membranes for forward osmosis (FO) process by hydration technology innovations (HTI) were the most innovative and also commercialized for research and field scale. Most recently, biomimetic Aquaporin (AQP) membrane has been commercialized on a large scale and product outlet is available for industrial and academic applications. In this work, we present the characterization and evaluating the performance of the biomimetic AQP forward osmosis (FO) membrane from aquaporin Asia Pte. Ltd in Singapore, using DI water and brackish water (BW) (5000 mg.L-1 of KCl) as feeds and KCl as draw solution (DS). Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), Fourier-transform-infrared (FTIR), and contact angle analysis were utilized to characterize AQP membrane. The intrinsic properties of the membrane were also assessed using a reverse osmosis (RO) setup followed by investigating FO performance in a lab-scale FO setup. Under FO tests, the membrane achieved high water flux of 12.8 and 17.1 L m(-2) h(-1) with a modest RSF of 14.8 and 17.5 g m(-2) h(-1) using 1.0 M KCl against DI water in FO and pressure retarded osmosis (PRO) modes, respectively. The results were also equaled to 9.1 and 10.1 L m(-2) h(-1) of water flux under FO and PRO modes as BW was used as FS.