In this study, thin film composite (TFC) membranes were modified using carbon nanofibers (CNFs) for forward osmosis (FO) applications. Carboxyl functionalization of CNFs was performed to increase their surface hydrophilicity and dispersion in a polysulfone (PSF) matrix as the membrane substrate. Different concentrations of both carboxyl functionalized CNFs (f-CNFs) (0.1, 0.3, and 0.5 wt%,) and raw CNFs (0.3 wt%) were incorporated in the polymer matrix and hydrophilicity, porosity, surface roughness, tensile strength and morphology of the nanocomposite substrates were characterized. The optimal membrane was achieved based on the best performance (higher water flux and lower reverse solute flux). Thereby, the TFC membrane containing 0.3 wt% of the f-CNFs was selected as the optimal membrane. The FO water flux of this membrane was almost 2 times higher than the neat TFC membrane in both FO (active layer facing FS) and PRO (active layer facing DS) modes of operation. Water flux of 13.08 L m^{− 2} h^{− 1} and specific reverse solute flux of 0.24 g L^{− 1} were achieved when 1 M NaCl was used as the draw solution (DS) and Deionized (DI) water was used as the feed solution (FS) under the FO mode. Furthermore, incorporation of the f-CNFs decreased the structural parameter (S) of the TFC membranes leading to lower internal concentration polarization (ICP). From the results, it was concluded that the f-CNFs is a suitable candidate for TFC-FO membranes modification to achieve high membrane performance.

在这项研究中，使用碳纳米纤维（CNF）对薄膜复合（TFC）膜进行了改性，以用于正向渗透（FO）应用。进行CNF的羧基官能化以增加其表面亲水性和在作为膜基质的聚砜（PSF）基质中的分散度。将不同浓度的羧基官能化CNF（f-CNFs）（0.1、0.3和0.5 wt％）和原始CNF（0.3 wt％）掺入到聚合物基质中，并且亲水性，孔隙率，表面粗糙度，拉伸强度和形态表征了纳米复合材料基底。基于最佳性能（较高的水通量和较低的反向溶质通量）获得了最佳的膜。因此，选择含有0.3重量％的f-CNF的TFC膜作为最佳膜。在FO（面向FS的活性层）和PRO（面向DS的活性层）两种操作模式下，该膜的FO水通量几乎比纯TFC膜高2倍。水通量为13.08 L m在FO模式下，当使用1 M NaCl作为汲取溶液（DS）和使用去离子（DI）水作为进料溶液（FS）时，可实现^-2  h ^-1和比反向溶质通量为0.24 g L ^-1。此外，掺入f-CNF会降低TFC膜的结构参数（S），从而降低内部浓度极化（ICP）。从结果可以得出结论，f-CNFs是TFC-FO膜改性以获得高膜性能的合适候选者。