Sohail Murad, Chemical Engineering, University of Illinois at Chicago, 810 South Clinton Street, Chicago, IL 60607 and Mukund Krishnamurthy, Chemical Engineering, University of Illinois, 810 S Clinton Street, Chicago, IL 60304.
Molecular simulations using the method of molecular dynamics have been carried out to examine the role external electric and magnetic fields can play in the transport of water via reverse osmosis across membranes. Our results show that both electric and magnetic fields can increase the transport rate of water across such membranes significantly. These observations can have an important impact on making reverse osmosis (RO) separation processes that involve the removal of water from solutions more efficient, since low flux rates across membranes is an important problem encountered in most current RO processes. We are aware of no experimental studies of such effects in enhancing the flux in RO separations.