• Membrane Journal
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.425-431
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• 2013

This paper has studied the hydrophilizing effect of support on the performance of pressure retarded osmosis (PRO). The hydrophilicity of polyester support has been controlled with cellulose solutions. In order to investigate the effect of hydrophilizing of support, the performance test has been conducted with membrane which compose of active layer and support in absence of support layer. The active layer has been made by casting of cellulose tri-acetate (CTA) 1,4-dioxane solution (13 wt%) and combined with the hydrophilized support. The results show that water fluxes of PRO membranes with hydrophobic or hydrophilized support were measured $0.8L/m^2hr$ and $1.2L/m^2hr$ under $5kgf/cm^2$ pressure, respectively. However, water flux increase did not accord with hydrophilicity of supports treated by cellulose solutions. It is because the porosity and pore size of supports decrease as the cellulose concentration increases. This result confirms that both the hydrophilization of support and the maintenance of membrane porosity are important to enhance the performance of PRO membrane.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.292-299
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• 2012

The objective of this study is to develop a novel method for evaluating forward osmosis (FO) membrane performances using a non-pressurized FO system. Basic membrane performance parameters including water (A) and solute (B) permeability coefficients and unique parameter for FO membrane such as the support layer structural parameter (S) were determined in two FO modes (i.e., active layer faces feed solution (AL-FS) and active layer faces draw solution (AL-DS)). Futhermore, these parameters were compared with those determined in a pressurized reverse osmosis (RO) system. Theoretical water flux was calculated by employing these parameters to a model that accounts for the effects of both internal and external concentration polarization. Water flux from FO experiment was compared to theoretical water fluxes for assessing the reliability of those parameters determined in three different operation modes (i.e., AL-FS FO, AL-DS FO, and RO modes). It is demonstrated that FO membrane performance parameters can be accurately measured in non-pressurized FO mode. Specifically, membrane performance parameters determined in AL-DS FO mode most accurately predict FO water flux. This implies that the evaluation of FO membrane performances should be performed in non-pressurized FO mode, which can prevent membrane compaction and/or defect and more precisely reflect FO operation conditions.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.37 no.11
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• pp.649-655
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• 2015

As a novel water treatment membrane, concept of ceramic-based graphene membrane (CbGM) was suggested, and its mass transport behavior was investigated. The selectivity of CbGM was given by graphene material which is consisting of active layer, only transmitting water, but rejecting salts. Filtration-assisted assembly methods was employed as a facile method to fabricate CbGM. Surface morphology and characteristics of CbGM were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and contact angle. In addition, three different kinds of solutes (i.e., NaCl, $MgCl_2$, $Na_2SO_4$) were tested in batch forward osmosis system to confirm the mass transport behavior. Through surface morphology analysis and mass transport behavior, it was revealed that interlocking between graphene layers is very important, rather than thickness of laminated graphene layers, in terms of selectivity to CbGM. All the anions in each solute showed faster transport than those of cations. In addition, solutes which have high ion valence charge ratio of anion to cation ($Z^-/Z^+$) was easier to be passed through CbGM. It indirectly implied that the surface charge of CbGM appear to be positive. In addition, It showed that surface charge of CbGM has a great role on mass transport, in particular, transport of matter having charges, generally ions.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.513-519
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• 2006

We developed two kinds of the microchip for application to electrophoresis based on both glass and quartz employing the MEMS fabrications. The poly-Si layer deposited onto the bonding interface apart from channel regions can play a role as the optical slit cutting off the stray light in order to concentrate the UV ray, from which it is possible to improve the signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio of the detection on a chip. In the glass chip, the deposited poly-Si layer had an important function of the etch mask and provided the bonding surface properly enabling the anodic bonding. The glass wafer including more impurities than quartz one results in the higher surface roughness of the channel wall, which affects subsequently on the microflow behavior of the sample solutions. In order to solve this problem, we prepared here the mixed etchant consisting HF and $NH_4F$ solutions, by which the surface roughness was reduced. Both the shape and the dimension of each channel were observed, and the electroosmotic flow velocities were measured as 0.5 mm/s for quartz and 0.36 mm/s for glass channel by implementing the microchip electrophoresis. Applying the optical slit with poly-Si layer provides that the S/N ratio of the peak is increased as ca. 2 times for quartz chip and ca. 3 times for glass chip. The maximum UV absorbance is also enhanced with ca. 1.6 and 1.7 times, respectively.