Emerging forward osmosis (FO) technologies and challenges ahead for clean water and clean energy applications

Chung, Tai‐Shung; Xue, Li; Ong, Rui Chin; Ge, Qingchun; Wang, Honglei; Han, Gang

doi:10.1016/j.coche.2012.07.004

Cited by 326 publications

(161 citation statements)

References 92 publications

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“…Moreover, the performances of the perm-selective membranes with the complex-forming solutions we use should be further investigated. For solutions with high concentrations, the pressure-retarded osmosis (PRO) [7][8][9] technique has a higher power density than RED [6]. This can be practically observed in the case of NaCl brines.…”

Section: Comparison With Other Salinity Gradient Power Techniquesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Proof-of-Concept of a Zinc-Silver Battery for the Extraction of Energy from a Concentration Difference

et al. 2014

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The conversion of heat into current can be obtained by a process with two stages. In the first one, the heat is used for distilling a solution and obtaining two flows with different concentrations. In the second stage, the two flows are sent to an electrochemical cell that produces current by consuming the concentration difference. In this paper, we propose such an electrochemical cell, working with water solutions of zinc chloride. The cell contains two electrodes, made respectively of zinc and silver covered by silver chloride. The operation of the cell is analogous to that of the capacitive mixing and of the "mixing entropy battery": the electrodes are charged while dipped in the concentrated solution and discharged when dipped in the diluted solution. The cyclic operation allows us to extract a surplus of energy, at the expense of the free energy of the concentration difference. We evaluate the feasibility of such a cell for practical applications and find that a power up to 2 W per m 2 of the surface of the electrodes can be achieved.

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Section: Comparison With Other Salinity Gradient Power Techniquesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The two most mature SGP techniques [6] are "pressure-retarded osmosis" (PRO) [7][8][9][10], based on semi-permeable membranes, and "reverse electrodialysis" (RED) [11][12][13], based on ion-exchange membranes. Other techniques, such as the "vapor pressure" method [14], have been proposed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Proof-of-Concept of a Zinc-Silver Battery for the Extraction of Energy from a Concentration Difference

et al. 2014

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“…[35,37] Membrane fouling leads to a water flux decline as a result of the increase of water transport resistance when solutes attach on membrane surface or diffuse into membrane interior. [39,43] Properties of membrane surface, such as hydrophilicity, charged state, roughness and structure, are closely related to the membrane fouling formation.…”

Section: Fo Membranementioning

confidence: 99%

“…[32][33][34][35][36] Although FO exhibits a great potential in alleviating the issues caused by freshwater shortage, challenges, such as relatively low water permeability, high reverse solute diffusion, severe concentration polarization (CP), and membrane fouling, are still present in FO applications. [37][38][39] To eliminate these problems, exploration of appropriate semi-permeable FO membrane and draw solute is urgently needed. Great efforts have been made in the development of FO technology in recent years, and a wide range of powerful FO membranes and suitable draw solutes have been proposed to date.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Progress in Forward Osmosis Membrane Separation Process

Chen¹,

Xu²,

Ge³

2017

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Forward osmosis (FO) has been extensively investigated and demonstrated its advantages in a range of FO applications over the past decade. However, challenges still remain in terms of the lack of both efficient FO membranes and appropriate draw solutes for practical FO applications. To promote the advancement of FO technology, considerable efforts have been made in exploring novel FO membranes and draw solutes in recent years. This paper will provide a short review on the progress of both FO membranes and draw solutes. First of all, a brief overview on FO principle is given. Then the progress in FO technology related to FO membrane and draw solute is presented with specific examples. Finally, challenges and future directions of FO technology in exploring efficient FO membranes and promising draw solutes are also highlighted. This article may provide new insights into the future development of FO technology and promote practical FO applications.Keywords forward osmosis, draw solution, forward osmosis membrane, forward osmosis application IntroductionFreshwater shortage has been becoming a more and more severe problem globally. [1][2][3][4] To mitigate this problem, various technologies for clean water production have been explored worldwide recently. [5][6][7][8][9] Membrane technology has shown a great potential in water treatment in view of the advantages of no phase change, strong adaptability, relatively simple operation and low cost. [5,[10][11][12] A range of pressure-driven membrane processes, such as microfiltration (MF), [13][14][15][16] ultrafiltration (UF), [13,17,18] nanofiltration (NF), [19][20][21] and reverse osmosis (RO) [22][23][24][25][26] have been extensively used for clean water production through either wastewater reuse or brackish water/ seawater desalination. However, some issues, such as severe membrane fouling, low water recovery rate, intensive-energy consumption and relatively low quality of product water, occur frequently during these processes. [10,13,17,23,27] FO has been recognized as a promising membrane process because of the following characteristics: (1) no requirement of hydraulic pressure; (2) a relatively high water recovery rate; (3) low membrane fouling propensity due to the absence of hydraulic pressure; (4) environmental friendliness. Given these merits, FO technology has been applied to a wide range of fields, such as seawater/brackish water desalination, [4,24,28] wastewater treatment, [8,[29][30][31] and many other areas. [32][33][34][35][36] Although FO exhibits a great potential in alleviating the issues caused by freshwater shortage, challenges, such as relatively low water permeability, high reverse solute diffusion, severe concentration polarization (CP), and membrane fouling, are still present in FO applications. [37][38][39] To eliminate these problems, exploration of appropriate semi-permeable FO membrane and draw solute is urgently needed. Great efforts have been made in the development of FO technology in recent years, and a wide range of powerful FO membra...

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“…Forward osmosis (FO) is based on the natural phenomenon of osmotic processes, and can extract clean water and energy from wastewater (e.g., in pressure retarded osmosis-PRO) [17]. FO refers to the water molecule movement across a semi-permeable membrane driven by osmotic pressure difference between the solutions with high (draw) and low (feed) solute concentrations ( Figure 1B).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

When Bioelectrochemical Systems Meet Forward Osmosis: Accomplishing Wastewater Treatment and Reuse through Synergy

Qin

Yuan

et al. 2014

Water

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Bioelectrochemical systems (BES) and forward osmosis (FO) are two emerging technologies with great potential for energy-efficient water/wastewater treatment. BES takes advantage of microbial interaction with a solid electron acceptor/donor to accomplish bioenergy recovery from organic compounds, and FO can extract high-quality water driven by an osmotic pressure. The strong synergy between those two technologies may complement each other and collaboratively address water-energy nexus. FO can assist BES with achieving water recovery (for future reuse), enhancing electricity generation, and supplying energy for accomplishing the cathode reactions; while BES may help FO with degrading organic contaminants, providing sustainable draw solute, and stabilizing water flux. This work has reviewed the recent development that focuses on the synergy between BES and FO, analyzed the advantages of each combination, and provided perspectives for future research. The findings encourage further investigation and development for efficient coordination between BES and FO towards an integrated system for wastewater treatment and reuse. OPEN ACCESSWater 2015, 7 39

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Emerging forward osmosis (FO) technologies and challenges ahead for clean water and clean energy applications

Cited by 326 publications

References 92 publications

Proof-of-Concept of a Zinc-Silver Battery for the Extraction of Energy from a Concentration Difference

Proof-of-Concept of a Zinc-Silver Battery for the Extraction of Energy from a Concentration Difference

Progress in Forward Osmosis Membrane Separation Process

When Bioelectrochemical Systems Meet Forward Osmosis: Accomplishing Wastewater Treatment and Reuse through Synergy

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