Synthesis and evaluation of nanocomposite forward osmosis membranes for Kuwait seawater desalination

Multistage flash (MSF) and reverse osmosis (RO) are the two major desalination technologies currently serving the needs of freshwater in Kuwait. MSF is energy intensive and suffer from low water recovery, while RO desire energy to fulfil its pressure requirement for the process. Thus, globally the scientists are focusing on the innovative desalination technologies which could be operated at low cost and environmentally friendly. In this regard, forward osmosis (FO) is one such emerging technology which can be operated under "Non-Pressure" requirement conditions to reduce the energy/cost of the desalination process. The principle of FO involves flow of the pure water across the semipermeable membrane by maintaining an osmotic pressure gradient between the feed solution (low concentration solution) and draw solution (high concentration solution). Related to this concept, a project was conducted at Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research to fabricate potential and fouling control membranes for the FO desalination. The aim of this paper is to present the important outcomes of the project in fabricating different types of membranes and results related to the high--performance thin film nanocomposite (TFN) membranes obtained in the project compared with commercial FO membranes. The TFN membrane with 0.05 wt.% nanoparticle composition resulted in high flux of vs. the commercial CTA membrane. Therefore, this work concluded that a suitable selection of nanoparticles and their proper modification is essential to fabricate potential membranes for FO application. Further, a nano-based FO membrane showed a potential application in FO desalination compared with commercial FO membranes.