Performance Evaluation and Fouling Propensity of Forward Osmosis (FO) Membrane for Reuse of Spent Dialysate

Abstract

The number of chronic renal disease patients has shown a significant increase in recent decades over the globe. Hemodialysis is the most commonly used treatment for renal replacement therapy (RRT) and dominates the global dialysis market. As one of the most water-consuming treatments in medical procedures, hemodialysis has room for improvement in reducing wastewater effluent. In this study, we investigated the technological feasibility of introducing the forward osmosis (FO) process for spent dialysate reuse. A 30 LMH of average water flux has been achieved using a commercial TFC membrane with high water permeability and salt removal. The water flux increased up to 23% with increasing flowrate from 100 mL/min to 500 mL/min. During 1 h spent dialysate treatment, the active layer facing feed solution (AL-FS) mode showed relatively higher flux stability with a 4–6 LMH of water flux reduction while the water flux decreased significantly at the active layer facing draw solution (AL-DS) mode with a 10–12 LMH reduction. In the pressure-assisted forward osmosis (PAFO) condition, high reverse salt flux was observed due to membrane deformation. During the membrane filtration process, scaling occurred due to the influence of polyvalent ions remaining on the membrane surface. Membrane fouling exacerbated the flux and was mainly caused by organic substances such as urea and creatinine. The results of this experiment provide an important basis for future research as a preliminary experiment for the introduction of the FO technique to hemodialysis.

Progress and Perspectives of Desalination in China

“…FO, as a spontaneous osmotic-driven process, was coupled with MD to recover water from draw solutions while the MD process was used to concentrate the draw solution from FO to obtain the maximum energy utilization. Furthermore, as an emerging novel desalination technology, FO has undergone significant development during the past decades, due to its high energy efficiency and favorable separation performances [68]. Interested readers are referred to the excellent review literature on FO [69][70][71].…”

Effect of Different Draw Solutions on Concentration Polarization in a Forward Osmosis Process: Theoretical Modeling and Experimental Validation

“…Forward osmosis (FO) is an emerging membrane technology for water resource sustainability, which has been applied widely in food concentration, pharmaceutics, and biorecovery. , FO utilizes the osmotic pressure (OP) difference between a feed solution and a draw solution as the driving force for the water transport across a semipermeable membrane. Compared to conventional pressure-driven processes such as reverse osmosis and nanofiltration, FO has the advantages of less energy consumption and less fouling propensity. − Despite many advantages, the FO processes still face significant challenges related to concentration polarization (CP) and reverse diffusion of the draw solute.…”

Combined Effect of Activated Carbon Particles and Non-Adsorptive Spherical Beads as Fluidized Media on Fouling, Organic Removal and Microbial Communities in Anaerobic Membrane Bioreactor

“…Additionally, the ABS beads have lower specific gravity than the GAC, thus requiring low energy consumption for their fluidization. However, the smooth surface of ABS beads provides less surface area for the growth of biofilm than that by GAC [ 31 , 32 , 33 ]. The AFMBR was operated using plastic beads as single fluidized media for domestic wastewater treatment application [ 24 ].…”