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The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of solution chemistry of branched polyethyleneimine (PEI) draw solute and to evaluate the PEI draw solute in a combined forward osmosis (FO)/nanofiltration (NF) system. Pure water was extracted from feed solution using the FO process, and the separation of pure water was achieved by the NF process. Lower molecular weight PEI showed higher water flux than higher molecular weight PEI, due to the lower internal concentration polarization caused by a higher diffusion rate and the easy permeation of pure water by lower viscosity of the draw solution (DS). The FO water flux was determined by the osmotic pressure induced by protonation/deprotonation of PEI, and the reverse draw solute flux was determined by the combination of PEI size due to the speciation and electrostatic interaction between the membrane and PEI. This study shows that the J s /J w value of PEI at pH 7 was smaller than those of sodium chloride and magnesium sulfate. The recovery of PEI DS using NF has a higher value (99.4%) than of sodium chloride (20.6%) and magnesium sulfate (97.0%); this means that PEI would be a promising draw solute in an FO-NF combined system for the saline water desalination.

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