History of Reverse Osmosis Development

In 1959, C.E. Reid and E.J. Breton at University of Florida, demonstrated the desalination capabilities of cellulose acetate film. They evaluated candidate semipermeable membranes in a trial-and-error approach, focusing on polymer films containing hydrophilic groups. Materials tested included cellophane, rubber hydrochloride, polystyrene, and cellulose acetate. Many of these materials exhibited no permeate flow, under pressures as high at 800 psi, and had chloride rejections of less than 35%. Cellulose 

1948 - Hassler studies osmotic properties of cellophane membranes at USA 

1955-Reid begins study of membranes of demineralization at University of Florida 

1959 - Breton and Reid demonstrate desalination capability of cellulose acetate film 

1960 - Loeb and Sourirajan develop asymmetric cellulose acetate membrane at UCLA 

A decade after Dr. Hasslei s efforts, Sidney Loeb and Srinivasa Soiulrajan at UCLA attempted an approach to osmosis and reverse osmosis that differed finom that of Dr. Hassler. Their approach consisted of pressurizing a solution directly against a flat, plastic film. Their work led to the development of the first asynunetric cellulose acetate membrane in 1960 (see Chapter 4.2.1). TTiis membrane made RO a commercial viability due to the significantly 

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Glater, Julius, "The Early History of Reverse Osmosis Membrane Development," Desalination, 117 (1998). 

The development of membranes for gas separations has been closely linked to that for water desalination. Therefore, a short review of the history of reverse osmosis membranes Is first given, followed by a presentation of the milestones leading to today s commercial, asymmetric membranes for gas separations. 

The latest major innovation, and also economically the most successful breakthrough, was achieved by Henis and Tripodl (34-38) with their invention of the resistance model (RM) fiber membranes in late 1979. In agreement with the history of reverse osmosis membrane development, they selected a high-strength, glassy polymer as membrane material, such as polysulfone with a glass transition... 

J. Glater, The early history of reverse osmosis membrane development. Desalination, 117 (1998) 297-309. 

The history of the membrane developments for reverse osmosis and gas permeation shows that because of inherent differences, it is not possible to simply apply the techniques and materials from one separation technology to the other. The success of the resistance-model hollow-fiber technology which is based on the glassy-fiber technology invented for reverse osmosis, demonstrates the necessity to search for advanced techniques to prepare more selective membranes free of imperfections, rather than to look for new, unavailable materials. 

IP is one of the techniques used for preparing composite membranes, normally for the production of NF and reverse osmosis (RO) membrane. Historically, thin-film composite membrane prepared by IP was developed in order to overcome the limitations and the problems encountered by an asymmetric membrane constructed by the phase inversion method (Rao et al. 1997). IP was a breakthrough in the history of membrane technology and was developed by Cadotte at the North Star Research Institute for RO applications (Pinnau and Freeman 2000). It is based on the polymerization that occurs between two reactive monomers at the interface of two immiscible solvents an aqueous phase and an organic solvent such as hexane, as shown in Figure 5.1. 

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