Experimental Assessment of Forward Osmosis Membrane System for Separation of Suspended Colloids

Abstract

The formation of the stable suspended colloids is well known in many industrial applications, whether you are in the wastewater treatment, dairy, chemical refinery, or food processing and production industry. Always there is one common challenge everyone faces: Total Suspended Solids (TSS). These suspended colloids can be very stable and difficult to separate due to their small size (less than 2?m). Many methods were tested for treating removing such colloidal particles. However, each method has its limitation in capability, depending on the condition and concentration of such colloidal particles. In this study, Forward Osmosis (FO) is used to remove such stable suspended particles without any flocculation and coagulation pretreatment. Forward Osmosis (FO) is an emerging technology in water treatment, which has several applications in different industries, and it has many advantages over other membrane processes. FO treats complex effluents with high rejection rate, has lower fouling/cake formation affinity, and relies on the difference in osmotic pressure across the membrane without the need of high-pressure aids which means minimum energy requirement. The utilization of FO in separating suspended colloids and its performance under different operating conditions. The results showed that FO membrane significantly remove the suspended colloids without having permanent fouling. This study concluded that FO membrane is promising technology for removing stable colloidal particles from wastewater effluent.