Efficacy of Electrically-Polarized 3D Printed Graphene-blended Spacers on the Flux Enhancement and Scaling Resistance of Water Filtration Membranes

In this research, an electrically polarized graphene-polylactic acid (E-GRP) spacer is introduced for the first time by a novel fabrication method, which consists of 3D printing followed electrical polarization under high voltage electric field (1.5 kV/cm). The fabricated E-GRP was tested in osmotic-driven process (forward osmosis system) to evaluate its performance terms water flux, reverse solute and ion attraction compared printed nonpolarized (GRP) polylactic (PLA) spacer. use developed as draw showed >50% flux enhancement (32.4 ± 2 Liter/m2/h (LMH)) system employing GRP (20.5 2.3 LMH) or PLA (20.8 2.1 This increased attributed local osmotic pressure across membrane surface due ions adsorbed As feed spacer, also retarded gypsum scaling on dispersion effect electrostatic forces between aggregation negatively charged surfaces. shown be maintained >100 h observing salt adsorption properties (in 3 M NaCl solution).