Since the advent of thin-film composite polyamide membranes brought forth a breakthrough in desalination and water purification nearly half century ago, recent years have only witnessed marginal improvements water-salt selectivity these membranes. The slow progression is partly attributable to limited understanding membrane synthesis–structure–performance relationships. A centralized archive re...

Abstract Our previously reported exploration (Journal of Membrane Science 565 (2018) 241–253) on the differences between fouling in reverse osmosis (RO) and forward (FO), used alginate as a foulant with initial conditions that ensured starting fluxes were same. That study found for cellulose triacetate (CTA) membrane extent fouling, based analysis resistance, was greater when part FO system. He...

Hypersaline brines are of growing environmental concern. While high-salinity desalination and zero liquid discharge (ZLD) increasingly attractive treatment options, the high salt scalant contents pose considerable technical difficulties to existing techniques. In this review, we introduce sources hypersaline brines, examine factors driving desalination, present thermodynamic minimum energy ZLD,...

The shrinking water supply together with our continuously increasing demand for this resource has stimulated a renewed interest in reverse osmosis (RO) as a water treatment unit process. A wider use of RO membranes, however, is impeded by a group of phenomena that lead to permeate flux decline, deterioration of permeate water quality, shortening of membrane life, and thus to a substantial incre...

We developed a method for the in situ synthesis of an oligoamide coating on gold. The resultant surface chemical composition, wettability, and chemical nature were comparable to aromatic polyamide films used as reverse osmosis membranes. Hence, the oligoamide wafer may be used in adsorption/fouling studies as a surface mimetic of reverse osmosis membranes.