Current status and challenges of fabricating thin film composite forward osmosis membrane: A comprehensive roadmap

Recently, forward osmosis (FO) has attracted a great deal of attention in desalination and wastewater treatment. Nevertheless, there are several critical challenges such as the need for new advances in designing membranes that must be met to enhance the water flux in FO processes, control the reverse salt flux, concentration polarization and fouling. Therefore, designing a suitable membrane with a high-water flux, low reverse salt flux, low fouling, and controlled concentration polarization seems to be essential. Thin film composite (TFC) membranes are the most widely used membranes in the FO field. Extensive research has been performed to fabricate and design high performance TFC membranes which can be exclusively used in FO processes. This paper aims to review three types of TFC membranes i.e. TFC's with polyamide active layer (TFC-A), thin film nanocomposites (TFC-N) and double-skinned TFC membranes (TFC-D) in flat sheet and hollow fiber configuration. Finally, an attempt is made to generate a general performance curve based on the water flux and reverse salt flux of these three TFC FO types and the future direction of the R and D on the FO membrane are discussed