Nur Aisyah Shafie creator author. text my 2025 2025 monographic eng xiii, 101 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 30 cm. + 1 CD-ROM The demand for sustainable water treatment methods has led to increased research into forward osmosis (FO) technology, which offers a promising solution for effective separation processes with low energy consumption. Nonetheless, further advancement of FO technology is hindered by the natural occurrences of internal concentration polarization (ICP) and fouling. Unlike the pressure-driven membrane, porous substrate layer plays detrimental roles in determining the overall performances of the thin film composite (TFC) FO membranes, however, study on parameters which affecting membrane substrate seldom given much consideration. Therefore, this study centres on optimizing the fabrication of porous substrate membranes for FO applications, particularly focusing on their ability to mitigate the internal concentration polarization (ICP) and to remove humic acid, a prevalent organic contaminant in natural water sources. Four critical fabrication parameters such as type of polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) molecular weight (10 kDa, 40 kDa, 360 kDa, 1300 kDa), PVP additive concentration (3- 11 wt.%), polyethersulfone (PES) concentration (11-17 wt.%), and casting thickness (100-250 m) were systematically analyzed to determine their effects on the morphology and performance of polyethersulfone (PES) thin-film composite (TFC) forward osmosis (FO) membranes. Non-solvent induced phase separation (NIPS) method was used to fabricate the substrate membrane, which was then followed by the interfacial polymerization of m-phenylene diamine (MPD) in aqueous solution and trimesoyl chloride (TMC) in hexane-organic solvent to form the active polyamide (PA) layer. Analyses of contact angle, porosity, pore size, functional group, morphology, and surface roughness were performed on membrane substrates and TFC membrane. Membrane performance parameters such as water flux (Jw), reverse salt diffusion (RSD), and specific reverse flux (SRF) were evaluated for the fabricated TFC membranes using the FO filtration system (pure water as feed solution and NaCl as draw solution). In addition, the water permeability coefficient (A), the solute permeability coefficient (B), and the structural parameter (S) were computed mathematically. Optimized membranes were chosen using the specific reverse flux (SRF) as the principal performance indicator. The optimal membranes for each parameter studied were 40kDa/15%PES/3%PVP/100m, 40kDa/15%PES/5%PVP/100m and 40kDa/15%PES/5%PVP/250m. These optimized membranes then evaluated for their antifouling and rejection properties using synthetic humic acid (HA) solution at 15 ppm concentration. Among the optimized PES membranes, 40kDa/15%PES/5%PVP/100m membrane demonstrated the excellent properties and performances. The membrane exhibited the lowest contact angle value of 41.06  2.29, porosity of 85.27  0.38 with the average pore size of 59.45 nm  2.53, surface roughness of 31.024 nm and structure of fingerlike and interconnected substrate with a thin upper PA layer. In term of membrane performances, the membrane showed the highest water flux from 2.3036 to 4.7333 LMH as DS concentration increased from 0.25 to 1.25 M, minimal reverse salt diffusion ranging from 0.3134 to 1.2792 GMH, and exceptional intrinsic parameters (water permeability, solute permeability and structural parameter were 0.0811 L.m-2.h-1.bar-1, 0.0361 L.m-2.h-1, and 134.86 m, repectively). Additionally, the optimized membrane demonstrated the superior performances towards the removal of HA with the rejection value of 98.07 %  0.62 and flux recovery ratio (FRR) of 109.67 %  3.00. specialized Nur Aisyah Binti Shafie Faculty of Chemical and Process Engineering Technology Thesis (Master of Science) -- Universiti Malaysia Pahang – 2024 Includes bibliographical references Faculty of Chemical and Process Engineering Technology Dissertations Universities and colleges Dissertations Theses Dissertations THE0010081 (Local) UMPSA 250516 20251125111041.0 eng