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Title: Enhanced Forward Osmosis Desalination with a Hybrid Ionic Liquid/Hydrogel Thermoresponsive Draw Agent System

Abstract

Forward osmosis (FO) has emerged as a new technology for desalination and exhibits potentials for applications where reverse osmosis is incapable or uneconomical for treating streams with high salinity or fouling propensity. However, most of current draw agents in FO are salts and difficult to be recycled cost- and energy-effectively. In this work, we demonstrate a new and facile approach to efficiently recover water from the FO process with enhanced water purity by using a binary ion liquid/hydrogel system. The hybrid ion liquid/hydrogel draw solution system demonstrated in this work synergistically leverages the thermoresponsive properties of both the ionic liquid (IL) and hydrogel to improve the overall FO performance. Our findings corroborate that the hydrogel mitigates the water flux decline of the IL as the draw agent and provide a ready route to contiguously and effectively regenerate water from the FO process. Such a route allows for an efficient recovery of water from the draw solute/water mixture with enhanced water purity, compared with conventional thermal treating of lower critical solution temperature IL draw solute/water. Furthermore, hydrogels can be used in a continuous and readily recyclable process to recover water without heating the entire draw solute/water mixture. Our design principles openmore » the door to use low-grade/waste heat or solar energy to regenerate draw agents and potentially reduce energy in the FO process considerably.« less

Authors:
; ; ; ;  [1]; ; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo
  1. Idaho National Laboratory, P.O. Box 1625 MS 2208, Idaho Falls, Idaho 83415, United States
  2. Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, United States
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Geothermal Technologies Office; LBNL Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program
OSTI Identifier:
1496895
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1508775; OSTI ID: 1564014
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC02-05CH11231
Resource Type:
Published Article
Journal Name:
ACS Omega
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Name: ACS Omega Journal Volume: 4 Journal Issue: 2; Journal ID: ISSN 2470-1343
Publisher:
American Chemical Society
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY; hydrogels; phase; proteins; water purification

Citation Formats

Hsu, Chih-Hao, Ma, Canghai, Bui, Ngoc, Song, Zhuonan, Wilson, Aaron D., Kostecki, Robert, Diederichsen, Kyle M., McCloskey, Bryan D., and Urban, Jeffrey J. Enhanced Forward Osmosis Desalination with a Hybrid Ionic Liquid/Hydrogel Thermoresponsive Draw Agent System. United States: N. p., 2019. Web. doi:10.1021/acsomega.8b02827.
Hsu, Chih-Hao, Ma, Canghai, Bui, Ngoc, Song, Zhuonan, Wilson, Aaron D., Kostecki, Robert, Diederichsen, Kyle M., McCloskey, Bryan D., & Urban, Jeffrey J. Enhanced Forward Osmosis Desalination with a Hybrid Ionic Liquid/Hydrogel Thermoresponsive Draw Agent System. United States. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsomega.8b02827
Hsu, Chih-Hao, Ma, Canghai, Bui, Ngoc, Song, Zhuonan, Wilson, Aaron D., Kostecki, Robert, Diederichsen, Kyle M., McCloskey, Bryan D., and Urban, Jeffrey J. Wed . "Enhanced Forward Osmosis Desalination with a Hybrid Ionic Liquid/Hydrogel Thermoresponsive Draw Agent System". United States. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsomega.8b02827.
@article{osti_1496895,
title = {Enhanced Forward Osmosis Desalination with a Hybrid Ionic Liquid/Hydrogel Thermoresponsive Draw Agent System},
author = {Hsu, Chih-Hao and Ma, Canghai and Bui, Ngoc and Song, Zhuonan and Wilson, Aaron D. and Kostecki, Robert and Diederichsen, Kyle M. and McCloskey, Bryan D. and Urban, Jeffrey J.},
abstractNote = {Forward osmosis (FO) has emerged as a new technology for desalination and exhibits potentials for applications where reverse osmosis is incapable or uneconomical for treating streams with high salinity or fouling propensity. However, most of current draw agents in FO are salts and difficult to be recycled cost- and energy-effectively. In this work, we demonstrate a new and facile approach to efficiently recover water from the FO process with enhanced water purity by using a binary ion liquid/hydrogel system. The hybrid ion liquid/hydrogel draw solution system demonstrated in this work synergistically leverages the thermoresponsive properties of both the ionic liquid (IL) and hydrogel to improve the overall FO performance. Our findings corroborate that the hydrogel mitigates the water flux decline of the IL as the draw agent and provide a ready route to contiguously and effectively regenerate water from the FO process. Such a route allows for an efficient recovery of water from the draw solute/water mixture with enhanced water purity, compared with conventional thermal treating of lower critical solution temperature IL draw solute/water. Furthermore, hydrogels can be used in a continuous and readily recyclable process to recover water without heating the entire draw solute/water mixture. Our design principles open the door to use low-grade/waste heat or solar energy to regenerate draw agents and potentially reduce energy in the FO process considerably.},
doi = {10.1021/acsomega.8b02827},
journal = {ACS Omega},
number = 2,
volume = 4,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed Feb 27 00:00:00 EST 2019},
month = {Wed Feb 27 00:00:00 EST 2019}
}

Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
https://doi.org/10.1021/acsomega.8b02827

Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 19 works
Citation information provided by
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Figures / Tables:

Figure 1 Figure 1: Chemical structures of ILs and the synthetic route of the thermoresponsive hydrogel.

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Figures/Tables have been extracted from DOE-funded journal article accepted manuscripts.