THE FORWARD OSMOSIS DESALINATION AND WATER TREATMENT: HIGH PERMEABLE GO-PAAM THIN ACTIVE LAYER MEMBRANE

Recently, the FO process has got remarkable attention from both research and industrial communities because of its significant potentials in resolving water scarcity. The FO process across a semi-permeable membrane, the natural osmotic pressure gradient is the driving force. The osmotic pressure drags water molecules from a feed solution (FS) with higher chemical potential to a concentrated draw solution (DS) with lower chemical potential. In Comparison with other pressure-driven membrane processes such as reverse osmosis (RO), FO has many benefits in practice such as lower fouling propensity as well as the potential of the reduction of energy consumption. The lack of hydraulic pressure leading to such important achievements in FO, which is a necessary factor for any membrane processes based on pressure-driven. In spite of these advantages, FO practical applications in actual desalination plants are restricted, the challenges are the availability, high water flux, low fouling tendency, and high selectivity. As a great choice, thinfilm composite (TFC) membranes have been used for seawater desalination with various technologies. Interfacial polymerization (IP) reaction fabricating TFC membranes polyamide (PA) active layer upon a proper support layer which is providing mechanical stability. Despite the crosslinked PA water permeation and solute rejection is very good, the long-term usefulness is still under doubt in the FO[۱-۴]. Recently, the nanomaterials applications in the preparation of PA TFC membranes mixed-matrix has furnished a new outlook to enhance membrane performance. Various studies have illustrated that incorporated PA TFC membranes with nanoparticles such asSiO۲, silver nanoparticles, TiO۲, zeolites, carbon nanotubes (CNTs), and Graphene Oxide increasing water flux, salt rejection, and great antifouling properties because of surface properties improvement in the PA separation layer. Among these nanomaterials, GO has attracted extreme attention in the fabrication of filtration membranes because of the intrinsic honeycomb pore structure for higher transportability. [۵,۶] The carbon atoms in GO, appear in a thin layer with sp۲ hybridization in a honeycomb crystal lattice structure, this structure makes GO an efficient barrier for water desalination. The nanosheets of GO have high chemical stability and hydrophilicity andproper anti-fouling characteristics[۷].