The performance of a newly commercialized aquaporin (AQP)‐based biomimetic forward osmosis (FO) membrane was evaluated with several commonly used fertilizers ((CO (NH2)2, KCl, CaCl2, (NH4)2SO4 and (NH4)2HPO4) as a draw solutions (DSs) to verifying the possible implementation of this AQP‐FO membrane in the fertigation industry. Also, DS and feed solution (FS) concentrations were evaluated under FO and pressure retarded osmosis (PRO) operation modes. The results showed that CaCl2 seems to be a more suitable DS in terms of the tradeoff between water flux and salt permeability, compared to the other DSs used in this study. However, KCl gained the highest performance in terms of water flux which was 13.9 and 24.1 Lm−2 h−1 in the FO and PRO mode, respectively. The performance of the AQP membrane in terms of water flux and reverse solute flux can be improved by modifying the structural and the membrane inhibitor layer characteristics for utilizing in commercial scales to compete with other available membranes of the FO process.

Thin‐film composite (TFC) forward‐osmosis (FO) membranes were developed on different woven and nonwoven backing fabrics as support. Embedded backing fabrics have a significant effect on the membrane film sublayer by imparting porosity, membrane mechanical strength, and thickness. Woven and nonwoven backing fabric supports have been used for FO membranes cast on the commercial scale. There are also a few studies on the laboratory scale, but repeating them seems to be a challenge. The results herein show that TFC membranes with nonwoven incorporated substrates gain a higher water flux while keeping the specific reverse salt flux low.

This paper presents the performance of aquaporin forward osmosis membrane using chemical fertilizers as a draw solution. The comprehensive evaluation conducted for five conventional fertilizers ((CO (NH2)2, KCl, CaCl2, (NH4)2SO4) and (NH4)2HPO4) as draw solutions. The diluted fertilizer can be used directly for farming as fertigation. In this process, DSs do not need to be recovered and it is a single step desalination process. The data include the characterization of the intrinsic properties of the membrane samples and their performance under FO and PRO modes of operations. In addition, the data for various draw solution concentration under feed solution with deferent total dissolved solids (TDS) were evaluated. For example, a water flux of 17.5 L m− 2 h− 1 and 23.92 g m−2 h−1 reverse solute flux (RSF) was achieved under the FO operation mode for 3 M KCl.