Development of thin film composite hollow fiber membrane for pressure-retarded osmosis
A salinity gradient power (SGP) system holds a great potential to generate continuous and clean electricity for 24 hours. Recently, incorporating with seawater reverse osmosis, SGP has been recognized as a alternative to solve the brine issue as well as energy saving. For commercialization, many scientists would sympathize that one of main hurdles is the limited performance of each membrane to extract the high power. In case of pressure retarded osmosis (PRO) closer to commercialization, the membrane must have the high water permeability and salt rejection. There are two type of modules; hollow fiber membranes and spiral type. Toray Chem. (Korea) already shows that 4th generation PRO module, but there is no still large size PRO hollow fiber modules. Therefore, this study presents 2 and 3 inch size of PRO hollow fiber membrane prepared by inside interfacial polymerization techniques.