In this study a thin film composite polyamide (TFC) membrane was synthesized and the effect of the preparation factors on its permeation flux and salt rejection were investigated. The TFC membranes generally consist of three structural components: (1) top ultra-thin skin polyamide (PA) membrane; (2) middle polysulfone support; (3) bottom non-woven polyester fabric. The membranes were synthesized in two steps. In the first step, the polysulfone membrane was prepared via wet phase inversion technique. The preparation conditions were changed and their effects on morphology and strength of prepared membranes were studied by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and tensile analysis. These conditions include the type, composition and temperature of coagulation bath as well as concentration and temperature of solution. In the second step, the thin polyamide membrane was synthesized by interfacial polymerization between solutions of trimesoyl chloride (TMC) in n-hexane and m -phenylenediamine (MPDA) in water. At this stage of the work, the effect of the reaction conditions including monomer concentration, curing time, reaction time and temperature were investigated on the salt rejection and water flux. The ATR-IR spectroscopy was used to determine the influence of these parameters on the structure of the PA membranes. Also, the salt rejection and water flux of the membranes were examined by using them in a RO system operating at 20 bar using 2000 ppm NaCl solution as the feed solution. The results showed that the minimum necessary time for interfacial polymerization reaction was 60 sec and the lower temperature reaction caused an improvement in membrane efficiency. Also, it was observed that the monomer concentration in evaluation range was not effective while increasing the curing time to 20 min led to polymer degradation. The best results for water flux and salt rejection were 19.5 L/m2h and %90, respectively. These results were obtained for the membrane synthesized at polymerization temperature of 6? C, curing time of 5 min, MPDA concentration of 2 %wt and TMC concentration of 0.2 %wt. Keywords: Composite membrane, Desalination, Reverse osmosis, Polyamide, Polysulfone , Wet phase inversion, Interfacial polymerization