Forward‐Osmosis Desalination with Poly(Ionic Liquid) Hydrogels as Smart Draw Agents

Fan, Xuelin; Liu, Huili; Gao, Yating; Zou, Zhu; Craig, Vincent S. J.; Zhang, Guangzhao; Liu, Guangming

doi:10.1002/adma.201600205

Cited by 71 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…23 Thermoresponsive materials are thus attractive for draw solutes to help realize this target. 12,24−27 Among those, ionic liquids (ILs) stand out as prominent candidates as their ionic nature generally guarantees a high osmotic pressure. Unlike commonly used inorganic salts in FO, the chemical structure of both cations and anions of ILs can be readily fine-tuned to exhibit desired thermodynamic properties.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enhanced Forward Osmosis Desalination with a Hybrid Ionic Liquid/Hydrogel Thermoresponsive Draw Agent System

Hsu

Bui

et al. 2019

ACS Omega

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Forward osmosis (FO) has emerged as a new technology for desalination and exhibits potentials for applications where reverse osmosis is incapable or uneconomical for treating streams with high salinity or fouling propensity. However, most of current draw agents in FO are salts and difficult to be recycled cost- and energy-effectively. In this work, we demonstrate a new and facile approach to efficiently recover water from the FO process with enhanced water purity by using a binary ion liquid/hydrogel system. The hybrid ion liquid/hydrogel draw solution system demonstrated in this work synergistically leverages the thermoresponsive properties of both the ionic liquid (IL) and hydrogel to improve the overall FO performance. Our findings corroborate that the hydrogel mitigates the water flux decline of the IL as the draw agent and provide a ready route to contiguously and effectively regenerate water from the FO process. Such a route allows for an efficient recovery of water from the draw solute/water mixture with enhanced water purity, compared with conventional thermal treating of lower critical solution temperature IL draw solute/water. Furthermore, hydrogels can be used in a continuous and readily recyclable process to recover water without heating the entire draw solute/water mixture. Our design principles open the door to use low-grade/waste heat or solar energy to regenerate draw agents and potentially reduce energy in the FO process considerably.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enhanced Forward Osmosis Desalination with a Hybrid Ionic Liquid/Hydrogel Thermoresponsive Draw Agent System

Hsu

Bui

et al. 2019

ACS Omega

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“…[43,105] Apart from PNIPAM, there are also other reported thermosensitive hydrogels prepared from ionic liquid monomers such as monomers of tetrabutylphosphonium p-styrenesulfonate, tributylhexylphosphonium p-styrenesulfonate, and tributyl-4-vinylbenzylphosphonium (TVBP) of which the hydrophilic/ hydrophobic balance is also critical in maintaining a sufficiently low LCST. [104,106] The LCST is also influenced by the presence of salt, for example, the LCST of 1 MDa hydroxypropyl cellulose is at 43 °C in the absence of salt while in a 0.7 m NaCl solution, the LCST is lowered to 31 °C. [107] Another form of stimulus that can be utilized to induce dewatering is light-induced isomerization of photochromic groups.…”

Section: Switchable Wettabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Polymeric Hydrogels—A Promising Platform in Enhancing Water Security for a Sustainable Future

Loo

Vásquez

Athanassiou

et al. 2021

Adv Materials Inter

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anthropogenic activities that have led to saline intrusion and contamination of the existing freshwater sources, making the current approaches for water treatment even more difficult and costly. [2][3][4] This, in combination with the continuously rising global water demand, results in a rather pessimistic prediction that an additional 2000 billion m 3 of freshwater supply will be required by 2030 to meet the global demand, assuming no gains on the current state of water-production capacity and efficiency. [5,6] As the existing freshwater sources are being depleted, there is a growing need for utilization of a broader range of water sources beyond the conventional ones, that is, brackish water, seawater, wastewater, and atmospheric moisture. [7] On top of that, there is a call for a greater focus on enhancing water security, particularly for the poor and vulnerable populations, as water scarcity is more critical in these geographical regions due to the lack of access to conventional infrastructure and power sources to produce clean water. [1,8,9] This, in addition to the increasing intensity and frequency of climate-related disasters, present unique demands, such as simple and off-grid operations, for water technologies (WTs) that can be deployed to manage the constraints imposed by these circumstances. [10]

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“…The water flux of PSSP was slightly lower than that of monomeric SSP in the FO system, and a negligible reverse solute flux was observed in PSSPs, indicating that the oligomers were more suitable as draw solutes in the FO system than monomers [41]. Thermo-responsive poly (ionic liquid) TVBP-C 6 hydrogels, which were prepared with the copolymer of (tributyl-4-vinylbenzylphosphonium)-based alkyl sulfonate counterion using a mixture of poly(propylene glycol) (PPG) and poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) as crosslinkers, were also evaluated as intelligent draw agents for the FO desalination [42]. All of the above results indicate that the water flux of polyelectrolyte hydrogels as draw solutes shows a dramatic decrease with the reduction of ionic composition and the reduced response with increasing ionic content and the mutual interference between different polymer network structures [36].…”

Section: Enhancing Water Flux By Changing Monomer Composition Of Hydrmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent Developments and Future Challenges of Hydrogels as Draw Solutes in Forward Osmosis Process

Wang

Gao

Tian

et al. 2020

Water

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Forward osmosis (FO) has been recently regarded as a promising water treatment technology due to its lower energy consumption and lower membrane fouling propensity compared to the reverse osmosis (RO). The absence of suitable draw solute constraints the wide-range application of the FO. Hydrogels are three-dimensional hydrophilic polymer networks that can absorb a huge amount of water. Particularly, stimuli-responsive polymer hydrogels can undergo a reversible volume change or solution-gel phase transition in response to external environmental stimuli, including temperature, light, pressure, solvent composition, and pH. These intrinsic properties indicate the lowest regeneration cost of draw solutes compared to the thermal method and other membrane processes. This review aims to introduce the research progress on hydrogels as draw solutes, clarify the existing problems and point out the further research direction.

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Forward‐Osmosis Desalination with Poly(Ionic Liquid) Hydrogels as Smart Draw Agents

Abstract: The combination of high desalination efficiency, negligible draw-solute leakage, nontoxicity, ease of regeneration, and effective separation to produce liquid water makes the smart draw agents developed here highly suited for forward-osmosis desalination.

Cited by 71 publications

References 37 publications

Enhanced Forward Osmosis Desalination with a Hybrid Ionic Liquid/Hydrogel Thermoresponsive Draw Agent System

Enhanced Forward Osmosis Desalination with a Hybrid Ionic Liquid/Hydrogel Thermoresponsive Draw Agent System

Polymeric Hydrogels—A Promising Platform in Enhancing Water Security for a Sustainable Future

Recent Developments and Future Challenges of Hydrogels as Draw Solutes in Forward Osmosis Process

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