Recently, among the water treatment technologies, the forward osmosis (FO) system has been received much attention due to the advantages in energy consumption. However, the practical application of the FO system has been limited because of the remaining obstacles such as the absence of both adequate osmotic agent and efficient membrane. In this study, polymers having lower critical solution temperature (LCST) and upper critical solution temperature (UCST), one of the thermal responsive characteristics, are used as the osmotic agents. These materials could be recovered easily by heating them to above their LCST and to below their UCST, respectively. Finally, we believe that our results will provide insight into the synthesis of osmotic agents for water treatment applications.

• 강효(동아대학교 화학공학과) | Hyo Kang