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Forward osmosis has been widely used due to its advantages such as low energy consumption and low membrane fouling. Conventional treatment of vegetable industry wastes leaving the liquor an additional puzzle. The objective of this study is to evaluate the feasibility of reducing energy consumption by using forward osmotic membrane technology to concentrate vegetable liquor. In this research, the suitable draw solutes' condition was investigated, results showed 1 M ammonium sulphate could reach 7.21 LMH water flux and it was chosen as the draw solution for concentrating vegetable liquor, then the long-term FO performance was compared with theoretical water flux showing that the difference of water flux decrease is caused by the organic matter. Further identification of the major foulant via a control variable method using simulated vegetable liquor leads to anthocyanins as the major foulant. This novel application of the fertilizer drawn FO process provided an environmentally friendly solution to the vegetable industry, which would potentially transform an industry into a sustainable cyclic economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the various types of materials with intrinsic porosity, porous organic cages (POCs) are distinctive as discrete molecules that possess intrinsic cavities and extrinsic channels capable of facilitating molecular sieving. However, the fabrication of POC membranes remains highly challenging due to the weak noncovalent intermolecular interactions and most reported POCs are powders. In this study, we constructed crystalline free-standing porous organic cage membranes by fortifying intermolecular interactions through the induction of intramolecular hydrogen bonds, which was confirmed by single-crystal X-ray analysis. To elucidate the driving forces behind, a series of terephthaldehyde building blocks containing different substitutions were reacted with flexible triamine under different conditions via interfacial polymerization (IP). Furthermore, density functional theory (DFT) calculations suggest that intramolecular hydrogen bonding can significantly boost the intermolecular interactions. The resulting membranes exhibited fast solvent permeance and high rejection of dyes not only in water, but also in organic solvents. In addition, the membrane demonstrated excellent performance in precise molecular sieving in organic solvents. This work opens an avenue to designing and fabricating free-standing membranes composed of porous organic materials for efficient molecular sieving., (© 2024 Wiley‐VCH GmbH.)