Sustainable forward osmosis desalination: a review on polymeric membranes and flux parameters

Water scarcity is one of the rising concern all over the world. The unavailability of pure drinking water is the root cause of this crisis. The best way to overcome this crisis is the process of desalination. A robust technology that is capable of overcoming the drawbacks of conventional water filtration techniques and can run at zero external energy is the Forward osmosis process. FO is sustainable desalination technology that takes its evolution back in the 1970s but still in its infancy. Due to its benefits over traditional pressure-driven membrane technologies, FO has now growing attention globally. This work aims to provide an overview of recent advancements of the FO process in water desalination. The review gives a detailed outlook on different polymeric membranes as well as the chemical additives in membranes and on various FO parameters like fixing of the draw and feed solution, structural parameter, pure water flux and reverse solute flux.