Effect of draw solution concentration and operating conditions on forward osmosis and pressure retarded osmosis performance in a spiral wound module

Abstract

Forward osmosis (FO) and pressure retarded osmosis (PRO) are concentration-driven membrane processes. While they can be potentially used in water, wastewater, and energy applications, these processes suffer from the concentration polarization inside the porous membrane support resulting in severe flux decrease, a phenomenon known as internal concentration polarization (ICP). Researchers have investigated the effect of ICP both in theoretical and experimental studies. The current study extends the existing ICP model to include the effect of draw solution dilution by membrane permeate flow in a spiral wound FO module (SWFO). FO and PRO experiments were performed using a Hydrowell ® SWFO under both submerged and cross-flow conditions. The effect of draw solution concentration, draw solution flow rate, feed water flow rate, and membrane orientation on FO and PRO water flux performance was systematically investigated. Permeate flow increased with greater draw solution concentration in both FO and PRO modes. ICP was found to drastically limit the available membrane flux in the concentration-driven membrane processes, and its adverse effect was more severe at greater draw solution concentration. Membrane flux was also affected by the dilution of draw solution when the permeate flow rate was comparable or greater than the draw solution flow rate. The submerged FO configuration performed nearly as good as the cross-flow configuration with feed water circulating outside of the membrane envelope (shorter flow path). In this case, the feed water flow rate only had limited effect on membrane flux likely due to its low mass transfer resistance. In contrary, the membrane flux can be adversely affected at low feed water flow rate when it was circulated inside of the membrane envelope (longer flow path).