The aim of this study is to investigate the various factors affecting membrane fouling and its reversibility in forward osmosis. Understanding these could advance the optimisation of forward osmosis, which will encourage the implementation of this process prior to reverse osmosis desalination.
The use of reverse osmosis desalination to produce potable water from seawater is growing due to urgent global water shortages. Forward osmosis has been proposed as a pre-treatment in desalination to dilute seawater entering the reverse osmosis step and recover clean water from wastewater potentially reducing energy requirements and membrane fouling. However, fouling cannot be totally avoided. The development of cleaning techniques for FO is hence needed to remove the fouling layer. An ideal cleaning technique minimizes discharge of cleaning chemicals to the environment and potentially allows for full recovery of the initial flux. Developing an effective cleaning technique is necessary to optimise the forward osmosis process.
