Abstract
Forward osmosis (FO) has received extensive attentions during the past decade as an emerging technology for wastewater treatment and desalination. The selection of an appropriate membrane is crucial for FO processes. Inorganic nanomaterials, which have been the greatest impetus to technological and industrial development in the 21st century, have spurred significant innovations and knowledge enhancement in the environmental applications particularly to revolutionize century-old conventional water treatment processes. Incorporation of functional inorganic nanomaterials into typical thin-film composite (TFC) membranes offer a great opportunity to improve the FO performance. This short review summarized typical TFC membranes modified with inorganic nanomaterials for forward osmosis during the past decade.