Convective transport of boron through a brackish water reverse osmosis membrane

In this work, cross-flow filtration experiments using a brackish water reverse osmosis polyamide membrane have been performed to gather boron rejection data as function of feed concentration, pressure, pH and salinity. Increasing transmembrane pressure increases the permeation of boron indicating that convective flow is important. This result is in contrast to the normal assumption that solution diffusion dominates in such systems. The extended Nernst–Planck equation with a Donnan-steric partition coefficient is used to analyse the transport mechanisms of both neutral boric acid and negatively charged borate ions through the RO membrane. The contribution of surface charge is experimentally determined by streaming potential measurements and the electrokinetic surface charge density is then calculated as a function of ionic strength and pH. It is found that a 0.380nm pore radius and an effective membrane porosity of 0.05 shows good agreement with experimental data. Charge screening becomes more dominant with increasing ionic strength and this contribution is readily incorporated into the model. The study extends our understanding of the transport mechanism of boric acid and borate ions which can assist in predicting the performance of polyamide reverse osmosis membranes. It also raises questions as to the true mechanism of transport through such a membrane. •Increasing pressure increases boron permeation, so convection is significant.•Modelled with the extended Nernst–Plank equation and Donnan-steric partition.•A membrane pore radius of 0.380nm provides a good fit to experimental data.•The model can fit boron permeation results across a wide range of pH and salinity.