Forward osmosis is the future of water recycling technology, an industry expert has reported. Michael Tylla, European business manager of water and wastewater at Koch Membrane Systems, revealed that although the idea is in its early stages, it will become more widely used in years to come.
“It is still fresh and it is still in the early stages but I think there is a good chance it is going to succeed and contribute to the use of membranes,” Tylla said.
Forward osmosis uses a semi-permeable membrane to separate water from dissolved solutes, using osmotic pressure. “The concept behind forward osmosis is that you use the natural osmotic pressure as an energy supplier. You use the pressure of the water to produce a pressure on the other side of the membrane and this can then be converted into energy by turbines or similar equipmend,” Tylla explained.
“If you are looking on the market at the moment a system has been built in Scandinavia and also a couple of companies, particularly in the United States, are pushing strongly on this and driving this technology,” he concluded.
Michael Tylla was talking to Utilities Middle East magazine ahead of the upcoming feature on membrane technology.
