The purpose of the present study is to reduce fouling formation, a fatal problem of membrane technology by means of surface-coating with a functional coating material, i.e., hydrophilic polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) polymer. The PVA coating caused the membrane surface to become more hydrophilic and it was confirmed by decreased contact angles up to 64% compared to the un-modified membranes. The surface-coated membrane found to exhibit substantially enhanced performance: a maximum flux increase of 36% and almost 100% recovery rate. Maximum concentration factor of 77 also was modeled in the present study. These results show that the membrane performance can be improved simply by applying a surface-active coating, even to the level of economic feasibility. (c) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.