Forward osmosis is an osmotically driven process with high potential for water desalination, wastewater treatment, and water reuse, as well as dilution and concentration of aqueous streams. However, its application is still hampered by the lack of ideal draw solutes, high-performance membranes, and fouling/biofouling. Biofouling is particularly challenging when FO is applied for seawater desalination and wastewater treatment. Over the last decade, many attempts have been made to exploit advances in materials science to obtain membranes with anti-biofouling properties to prevent or to reduce the detrimental effects of this phenomenon. In this work, polyamide thin-film composite membranes were functionalized with two metal-azolate frameworks (MAFs). We report for the first-time membranes yielding near complete inhibition of a robust biofilm-forming bacterium (<i>Pseudomonas aeruginosa</i>) and inactivation of planktonic bacteria, while maintaining high selectivity. These features dramatically improved the long-term water flux performance of the membranes, tested during 24 hours of accelerated biofouling and organic fouling and showing less than 10% and 20% decline in water flux. These improvements were achieved with only 0.03% to 0.06% mass of MAFs, demonstrating that low-cost and environmentally benign functionalization can prevent biofouling growth while maintaining selectivity and transport for high-performance desalination, water treatment and reuse.

Metal-azolate framework decorated thin-film composite membranes: Antibacterial mode of action and beyond

ACS Fall 2021

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