LAUSR

Abstract In this paper, a simple and feasible prepressing method in spacer-filled channels was applied to improve the membrane performance for commercial TFC-FO membranes. Deformation-induced water flux increase rate reached up to 65.41%, meanwhile reverse solute flux had just increased by 24.90%. Such results showed that the membrane performance was effectively improved without complex chemical modification. Stability experiments also demonstrated that the viscous forces in the water permeation process had exerted slight adverse effect on the permeability–selectivity performance of deformed membranes compared to hydraulic pressure. As such, repeated prepressing operation turned out to be effective in terms of stable water flux in long-term filtration process. Therefore, the prepressing operation in spacer-filled channels can be an alternative method to enhance the initial membrane performance and, more significantly, improve the process efficiency in FO.