Removing water from the pyrolysis oil is a challenge because the oils are thermally unstable and of dissolved components in aqueous matrix. Therefore, techniques are need for removing water altering the chemical composition in an economic feasible way. Here we investigated an osmotic membrane process forward osmosis (FO) which removes pure water without dissolved components can operate at ambient temperature. The driving force for this process is the osmotic pressure between feed solution (FS) and osmotic agent (draw solution (DS)). In this study cellulose acetate membranes and two osmotic agents (draw solutions) were used: NaCl and MgCl2 solutions; the were done at 25 C over 12 h. The study demonstrates that the FO process is a promising process; was removed reasonably well within 12 h. This investigation shows that the NaCl solution is over other solutions used; however, diffusion of the solutes from the DS to FS is a challenge given alkali metal ions above the accepted level impair the oil. Therefore, membranes with high and draw solutions that produce high water fluxes with minimal reverse solute fluxes are needed. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights