Novel Polyelectrolyte-Based Draw Solute That Overcomes the Trade-Off between Forward Osmosis Performance and Ease of Regeneration

Forward osmosis (FO) is an emerging technology for seawater and brackish desalination, wastewater treatment, and other applications, such as food processing, power generation, and protein and pharmaceutical enrichment. However, choosing a draw solute (DS) that provides an appropriate driving force and, at the same time, is easy to recover, is challenging. In this study, water-soluble poly(styrene sulfonate) (PSS) was modified by a high-electrical-conductivity 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene (EDOT) monomer to fabricate a novel draw solute (mPSS). FO tests with the CTA membrane in the active layer facing the feed solution (AL-FS) orientation, using a 50 mS/cm aqueous solution of synthesized solute and distilled water as a feed solution exhibited a water flux of 4.2 L h(−1) m(−2) and a corresponding reverse solute flux of 0.19 g h(−1) m(−2). The FO tests with the same membrane, using a 50 mS/cm NaCl control draw solution, yielded a lower water flux of 3.6 L h(−1) m(−2) and a reverse solute flux of 4.13 g h(−1) m(−2), which was more than one order of magnitude greater. More importantly, the synthesized draw solute was easily regenerated using a commercial ultrafiltration membrane (PS35), which showed over 96% rejection.