Comments on “Deformation-induced cleaning of organically fouled membranes: Fundamentals and techno-economic assessment for spiral-wound membranes”, J. Membr. Sci. 626 (2021) 119169

The topic of chemical-free spiral wound membrane (SWM) cleaning, dealt with in this paper, is certainly of great interest to both industry and academia. However, in this Letter, the reasons are outlined for the serious limitations, imposed on implementation of the proposed deformation-induced cleaning (DIC) method to SWM modules, which have been apparently disregarded in this paper. These limitations are due to the dominant structural characteristics of SWM module-design; in particular, to the imposed (during fabrication) interlayer pressure on the membrane leaves and to the overall rigidity of the currently employed modules. These issues/imitations, and the implications of neglecting them are outlined herein.