• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.417-425
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• 2016

Desalination is a key technology to overcome water shortage problem in a near future. High energy consumption is an Achilles' heel in desalination technology. Osmotically driven membrane processes like forward osmosis(FO) was introduced to address this energy issue. Characterizing membrane properties such as water permeability(A), salt permeability(B), and the resistance to salt diffusion within the support layer($K_{ICP}$) are very important to predict the performance of scaled-up FO processes. Currently, most of researches reported that the water permeability of FO membrane was measured by reverse osmosis(RO) type test. Permeating direction of RO and FO are different and RO test needs hydraulic pressure so that several problems can be occurred(i.e. membrane deformation, compaction and effect of concentration polarization). This study focuses on measuring water permeability of FO membrane by FO type test results in various experimental conditions. A statistical approach was developed to evaluate the three FO membrane properties(A, B, and $K_{ICP}$) and it predicted test result by the internal and external concentration polarization model.