• Membrane Journal
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.211-219
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• 2013

Effect of water back-flushing period (FT) was investigated in hybrid water treatment process of carbon ultrafiltration and polypropylene (PP) beads coated with photocatalyst, and membrane effect was studied by comparing the previous studies with carbon microfiltration or alumina ultrafiltration, microfiltration membranes. FT 6 min was the most effective to control initial membrane fouling and optimal condition because the membrane fouling resistance was low until initial 60 min and the maximum total permeate volume was acquired at this FT. The turbidity treatment efficiency was high beyond 98.6%, and did not depend on FT, which was same with the previous result of carbon or alumina microfiltration. The organic matters treatment efficiency was the highest value of 98.2% at FT 6 min, which was almost same trend with the previous result of alumina microfiltration. Then the organic matters treatment efficiency of carbon microfiltration was the minimum at no back-flushing (NBF) and increased as decreasing FT, but that of alumina ultrafiltration was the maximum at NBF and also increased as decreasing FT. Therefore it means that water back-flushing effect on the organic matters treatment efficiency had a different mechanism depending on pore size in spite of the same material membranes.

• Clean Technology
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.119-128
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• 2002

In the present study the membrane filtration characteristics of a commercially available synthetic water-based cutting oil through two kinds of ultrafiltration membranes (HF1-45-CM50 and HF1-43-CM100) with molecular weight cut-offs of 50,000 and 100,000, respectively, have been investigated in detail. Among these membranes, the hydrophilic one (HF1-45-CM50) was found to show a satisfactory result for both the permeate flux and the permeability of oil components, whereas the permeate flux obtained with the hydrophobic membrane (HF1-43-CM100) appears to be significantly low, indicating that synthetic cutting oil was easily wetted on the hydrophobic membrane surface and induced more membrane fouling. The effect of material characteristics of the membrane on the filtration characteristics was found to be much more significant compared with the mean pore size of the membrane. Backflushing by nitrogen gas was applied to reduce the formation of a gel layer and membrane fouling. With the hydrophilic membrane, the backflushing was found to increase the permeate flux, whereas the backflushing resulted in a decrease in flux for the hydrophobic membrane. The flux recovery was observed to be highest when the membranes fouled with waste synthetic cutting oil were immersed into a cleaning solution for more than 72 hours and then backflushed by nitrogen gas.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.101-119
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• 2021

The demand for clean water is virtually present in all modern human societies even as our society has developed increasingly more advanced and sophisticated technologies to improve human life. However, as global climate change begins to show more dramatic effects in many regions in the world, the demand for a cheap, effective way to treat wastewater or to remove harmful bacteria, microbes, viruses, and other solvents detrimental to human health has continued to remain present and remains as important as ever. Well-established synthetic membranes composed of polyaniline (PANI), polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), and others have been extensively studied to gather information regarding the characteristics and performance of the membrane, but recent studies have shown that making these synthetic membranes conductive to electrical current by doping the membrane with another material or incorporating conductive materials onto the surface of the membrane, such as allotropes of carbon, have shown to increase the performance of these membranes by allowing the adjustability of pore size, improving antifouling and making the antibacterial property better. In this review, modern electrically conductive membranes are compared to conventional membranes and their performance improvements under electric fields are discussed, as well as their potential in water filtration and wastewater treatment applications.