A thin-film composite-hollow fiber forward osmosis membrane with a polyketone hollow fiber membrane as a support

We have developed a thin-film composite (TFC) hollow fiber (HF) forward osmosis (FO) membrane using a polyketone HF membrane as a support. To investigate the effect of the diameter of the HF support membrane on the resulting FO performance of the TFC-HF-FO membrane, two-types of HFs with different inner diameters (HF-A: 347 μm and HF-B: 609 μm) were used. The FO performance of the prepared TFC membranes was measured and then analyzed using intrinsic membrane parameters obtained by an FO fitting method. These intrinsic parameters can be used to estimate the experimental data under various operating conditions. The prepared TFC-FO membrane using the HF with smaller diameter (TFC-FO (HF-A)) showed higher FO flux and better mechanical properties than those of the membrane prepared using the HF with larger diameter (TFC-FO (HF-B)), while higher operational pumping energy consumption is necessary because of higher bore-side pressure drop. Barlow's equation and the Hagen-Poiseuille equation were used to analyze the experimental data on the maximum burst pressure and the data on bore-side pressure drop of the prepared TFC FO membranes, respectively. The prepared TFC-FO membrane using the HF with smaller diameter showed one of highest FO fluxes yet reported in the literature.