Abstract
In a desalination technology using RO membranes, chemical cleaning makes damage for membrane surface and membrane life be shortened. In this research cleaning technology using direct osmosis (DO) was introduced to apply it under the condition of high pH and high concentration of feed. When the high concentration of feed is injected to the concentrate side after release of operating pressure, then backward flow occurred from treated water toward concentrated for osmotic pressure. This flow reduces fouling on the membrane surface. Namely, flux of DO was monitored under pH 3, 5, 10 and 12 conditions at feed concentrations of NaCl 40,000 mg/L, 120,000 mg/L and 160,000 mg/L. As a result, DO flux in pH 12 increased about 21% than pH 3. DO cleaning was performed under the concentrate NaCl 160,000 mg/L of pH 12 during 20 minutes. Three kinds of synthetic feed water were used as concentrates. They consisted of organic, inorganic and seawater; chemicals of SiO2 (200 mg/L), humic acid (50 mg/L) sodium alginate (50 mg/L) and seawater. As a result, fluxes were recovered to 17% in organic fouling, 15% in inorganic fouling and 14% of seawater fouling after cleaning using DO under the condition of concentrate NaCl 160,000 mg/L of pH 12.
