Water. Desalination + reuse
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/640467
TECHNOLOGY February-March 2016 | Desalination & Water Reuse | 25 | Forward osmosis (Fo) has made steady progress in the past few years in finding places in a number of niche markets but it is facing difficult challenges on the road to commercialization. It is an intellectually stimulating concept, and this is one reason it has received so much attention and been a source of exaggerated claims in recent years. After several decades of modest uptake, reverse osmosis (RO) has become fully mature in the past 15 years and is now widely adopted. There are several established membrane manufacturers in RO with products that are almost identical in terms of dimensions and performance. In contrast, FO – sometimes called direct osmosis or osmotic dilution and concentration and which deploys the basic osmotic principle with water flowing across a semi-permeable membrane into a higher ionic concentration – has yet to take centre stage. To date, its commercial development has been led mainly by small players, often venture-backed, such as Trevi, Oasys, Modern Water, Porifera and Hydration Technologies. The larger companies in the membrane industry have generally watched from the sidelines and have not participated directly. Dow, Toray and Hydranautics, all The authors have taken a look at findings in a recent BlueTech report tracking the prospects for forward osmosis as a player in conventional desalination and water reuse applications. _________ Paul O'Callaghan, chief executive officer, and Dr Graeme Pearce, BlueTech Research ___ Forward osmosis: mainstream or margins? Forward thinking: Modern Water is among the small players leading the way in forward osmosis.