Thin-film composite forward osmosis (TFC-FO) membranes show the potential to be applied in water treatment applications. However, the TFC-FO membrane performance was limited by internal concentration polarization (ICP) and membrane fouling. In this study, a well-functioning TFC-FO membrane was produced by embedding biogenic silver nanoparticles (BioAg) into the polysulfone (PSf) substrate of a FO membrane. Effects of BioAg on membrane structure, filtration performance, antifouling, and antibacterial properties of the as-prepared FO membranes were examined. Results indicated that BioAg-modified FO membranes achieved improved surface hydrophilicity, higher porosity, and mitigated ICP, resulting in 2.5–4.4 times higher water flux than the pristine FO membranes. The BioAg-modified FO membrane also showed significantly improved antifouling and antibacterial ability. Moreover, the release velocity of silver nanoparticles in FO membranes was significantly slowed down by the construction of the polyamide layer. After 30 days of immersion in an aqueous solution, 96.5% of silver was retained in the optimized BioAg-modified FO membrane. The study offers an effective approach to simultaneously mitigate ICP and enhance the antifouling property of TFC-FO membranes through substrate modification.

薄膜复合正向渗透 (TFC-FO) 膜显示出在水处理应用中的应用潜力。然而，TFC-FO 膜的性能受到内部浓差极化 (ICP) 和膜污染的限制。在这项研究中，通过将生物银纳米粒子 (BioAg) 嵌入到 FO 膜的聚砜 (PSf) 底物中来生产功能良好的 TFC-FO 膜。研究了 BioAg 对制备的 FO 膜的膜结构、过滤性能、防污和抗菌性能的影响。结果表明，BioAg 改性的 FO 膜实现了改善的表面亲水性、更高的孔隙率并减轻了 ICP，导致水通量比原始 FO 膜高 2.5-4.4 倍。BioAg 修饰的 FO 膜也显示出显着提高的防污和抗菌能力。此外，聚酰胺层的构建显着减慢了银纳米颗粒在 FO 膜中的释放速度。在水溶液中浸泡 30 天后，96.5% 的银保留在优化的 BioAg 改性 FO 膜中。该研究提供了一种有效的方法，通过基材改性同时减轻 ICP 和增强 TFC-FO 膜的防污性能。