2021/11/29 by Arvin Shadravan, Shadravan, Arvin, Mahmood Amani +1 · 1 citation
Engineering · Environmental Science · #Electrohydrodynamics and Fluid Dynamics #FOS: Physical sciences #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) #Membrane Separation Technologies #Nanopore and Nanochannel Transport Studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2112.01428
openalex publication_date 2021/11/29 · openalex created_date 2022/05/05 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Energy and water issues are the two main global challenges faced by human in\nthe past decade. The rapid growth in global energy consumption and greenhouse\ngas emissions have encouraged the exploration of renewable energy sources as\nsubstitute fuels. Osmotic energy (or salinity-gradient energy) is the energy\nreleased when water with different salinities is mixed, such as rivers and\noceans. By employing a semipermeable membrane to control the mixing process,\nthe osmotic pressure gradient energy can be generated in terms of electrical\npower via pressure retarded osmosis (PRO) without causing adverse environmental\nimpacts. This work presents a review of the fabrication of thin film\nnanocomposite (TFN) membranes which are customized to offer high flux in\nforward osmosis (FO) and high osmotic power in PRO. The hydraulic pressure\nduring PRO processes is less than RO processes so membranes that are used for\nPRO are less likely to foul. The application of these nanomaterials\nincorporated with TFN membranes for power generation through PRO is still a new\nfield to be explored. Despite some promising findings obtained from this work,\nthere is always room for improvement.\n