In this study, pressure-retarded osmosis (PRO) performance of a 5-inch scale cellulose triacetate (CTA)-based hollow fiber (HF) membrane module was evaluated under a wide range of operating conditions (0.0⁻6.0 MPa of applied pressure, 0.5⁻2.0 L/min feed solution (FS) inlet flow rate, 1.0⁻6.0 L/min DS inlet flow rate and 0.1⁻0.9 M draw solution (DS) concentration) by using a PRO/reverse osmosis (RO) hybrid system. The subsequent RO system for DS regeneration enabled the evaluation of the steady-stated module performance. In the case of pilot-scale module operation, since the DS dilution and the feed solution (FS) up-concentration had occurred and was not negligible, unlike the lab-scale experiment, PRO performance strongly depended on operating conditions such as inlet flow rates of both the DS and FS concentration. To compare the module performance with different configurations, we proposed a converted parameter in which a difference of the packing density between the spiral wound (SW) and the HF module was fairly considered. In the case of HF configuration, because of high packing density, volumetric-based performance was higher than that of SW module, that is, the required number of the module would be less than that of SW module in a full-scale PRO plant.
Keywords: hollow fiber membrane; pilot-scale; pressure-retarded osmosis.