Incorporation of graphene oxide on thin film composite polysulfone/polyamide membranes

Potable water has become a valuable, and sometimes, scarce resource due to population growth and industrial activities. Therefore, technologies that can process and generate this product are necessaries to avoid a global scenario of water scarcity in the following years. Reverse osmosis desalination using membranes is one of the most used strategies to produce potable water. However, polymeric membranes are susceptible to fouling and chlorine attack, which reduce their lifespan. Different approaches have been used to solve these problems such as the incorporation of nanocharges on the polymeric matrix of the membranes. In this work, the incorporation of graphene oxide on the polyamide membranes using different insertion routes was reviewed. The main results show that using graphene oxide as an additive for the thin film composite membranes, highly improves their performance in desalination systems as shown with the increase in 80% of the permeate flux while retaining salt rejection, besides, the addition of this nanocharge potentially increased chlorine resistance in 25%.