• 상하수도학회지
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• 제30권5호
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• pp.511-519
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• 2016

Shale gas has become increasingly important as a viable alternative to conventional gas resources. However, one of the critical issues in the development of shale gas is the generation of produced water, which contains high concentration of ionic compounds (> TDS of 100,000 mg/L). Accordingly, membrane distillation (MD) was considered to treat such produced water. Experiments were carried out using a laboratory-scale direct contact MD (DCMD). Synthetic produced water was prepared to examine its fouling propensity in MD process. Antiscalants and in-line filtration were applied to control fouling by scale formation. Fouling rates (-dJ/dt) were calculated for in-depth analysis of fouling behaviors. Results showed that severe fouling occurred during the treatment of high range produced water (TDS of 308 g/L). Application of antiscalant was not effective to retard scale formation. On the other hand, in-line filtration increased the induction time and reduced fouling.

• 한국물환경학회지
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• 제38권3호
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• pp.143-149
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• 2022

Membrane distillation (MD) has emerged as a sustainable desalination technology to solve the water and energy problems faced by the modern society. In particular, the surface wetting properties of the membrane have been recognized as a key parameter to determine the performance of the MD system. In this study, a novel surface modification technique was developed to induce a Janus-type hydrophilic/hydrophobic layer on the membrane surface. The hydrophilic layer was created on a porous PVDF membrane by vapor phase polymerization of the pyrrole monomer, forming a thin coating of polypyrrole on the membrane walls. A rigid polymeric coating layer was created without compromising the membrane porosity. The hydrophilic coating was then followed by the in-situ growth of siloxane nanoparticles, where the condensation of organosilane provided quick loading of hydrophobic layers on the membrane surface. The composite layers of dual coatings allowed systematic control of the surface wettability of porous membranes. By the virtue of the photothermal property of the hydrophilic polypyrrole layer, the desalination performance of the coated membrane was tested in a solar MD system. The wetting properties of the dual-layer were further evaluated in a direct-contact MD module, exploring the potential of the Janus membrane structure for effective and low-energy desalination.

• Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering
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• 제35권11호
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• pp.2241-2255
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• 2018

RSM methodology was applied to present mathematical models for the fabrication of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) dual-layer hollow fibers in membrane distillation process. The design of experiments was used to investigate three main parameters in terms of polymer concentration in both outer and inner layers and the flow rate of dope solutions by the Box-Behnken method. According to obtained results, the optimization was done to present the proper membrane with desirable properties. The characteristics of the optimized membrane (named HF-O) suggested by the Box-Behnken (at the predicted point) showed that the proposed models are strongly valid. Then, a morphology study was done to modify the fiber by a combination of three types of a structure such as macro-void, sponge-like and sharp finger-like. It also improved the hydrophobicity of outer surface from 87 to $113^{\circ}$ and the mean pore size of the inner surface from 108.12 to 560.14 nm. The DCMD flux of modified fiber (named HF-M) enhanced 62% more than HF-O when it was fabricated by considering both of RSM and morphology study results. Finally, HF-M was conducted for long-term desalination process up to 100 hr and showed stable flux and wetting resistance during the test. These stepwise approaches are proposed to easily predict the main properties of PVDF dual-layer hollow fibers by valid models and to effectively modify its structure.

• 한국물환경학회지
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• 제36권2호
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• pp.137-147
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• 2020

A direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) was applied to treat strong nitrogenous wastewater of anaerobic digestion supernatant (ADS) and human urine (HU). The ammonia transfer was evaluated in terms of specific ammonia transfer (SAT) value, which is the ratio of total ammoniacal nitrogen divided by the amount of water transferred. The acidification resulted in low SAT values and high quality of produced water. The ammonia transfer control in the acidic condition was stronger for HU than ADS due to higher alkalinity (pH 8.8) and ammonia concentration (5700 mg-N/L) of HU. Acidified HU at pH 4 exhibited a SAT value of 1.64 × 10^-5, which was significantly smaller than the SAT value of 3.00 × 10^-3 for the original HU. The low pH enhanced the water flux for ADS, but HU showed a steep decrease in water flux due to enhanced fouling. It was considered that the fouling intensity in acidic conditions depends on the characteristics of the wastewater source. The major foulants on the MD membrane were NaCl, CaCO₃ and CuSO₄ as recognized by the SEM-EDS. Acidified ADS and HU at pH 4 showed relatively high N content of 8.18 % and 28.03 %, respectively, as organic fouling.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• 제1권3호
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• pp.215-230
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• 2010

Poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene), PVDF-HFP, hollow fiber membranes were prepared by the dry/wet spinning technique using different polyethylene glycol (PEG) concentrations as non-solvent additive in the dope solution. Two different PEG concentrations (3 and 5 wt.%). The morphology and structural characteristics of the hollow fiber membranes were studied by means of optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy (AFM) and void volume fraction. The experimental permeate flux and the salt (NaCl) rejection factor were determined using direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) process. An increase of the PEG content in the spinning solution resulted in a faster coagulation of the PVDF-HFP copolymer and a transition of the cross-section internal layer structure from a sponge-type structure to a finger-type structure. Pore size, nodule size and roughness parameters of both the internal and external hollow fiber surfaces were determined by AFM. It was observed that both the pore size and roughness of the internal surface of the hollow fibers enhanced with increasing the PEG concentration, whereas no change was observed at the outer surface. The void volume fraction increased with the increase of the PEG content in the spinning solution resulting in a higher DCMD flux and a smaller salt rejection factor.

• 상하수도학회지
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• 제29권2호
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• pp.261-269
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• 2015

In this study, we applied a membrane distillation process to investigate a feasibility of treating a wastewater with high concentration of organic matters including nitrogen and phosphorus. The laboratory scale experiment was performed by using a hydrophobic PVDF membrane with the pore size of $0.22{\mu}m$ and porosity of 75%. The installation was direct contact type where the temperature difference between a feed and permeate side was controlled to have a range from 20 to $60^{\circ}C$. We observed a flux variation and a concentration changes of COD, $PO{_4}^{3-}$-P, $NH_4{^+}$-N and conductivity of feed side as well as permeate side with various temperature differences (20 to $60^{\circ}C$), cross flow velocities (0.09 to 0.27 m/s) through the module, and pH (6.6 to 12.0) of the feed that has the initial concentration of COD about 1,000 mg/L, total nitrogen 390 mg/L, total phosphorus 10 mg/L, conductivity of $7,000{\mu}s/cm$. The results showed that the average flux was ranged from 4 to $40L/m^2/hr$ which was almost similar with the flux of NaCl and deionized water used as a feed solution. The lowest flux was obtained at the operating condition with the temperature difference of $20^{\circ}C$ and cross flow velocity of 0.09 m/s while the highest one was measured with $60^{\circ}C$ and 0.27 m/s. Above 99% of COD and $PO{_4}^{3-}$-P in the feed could be rejected regardless of an operating condition. However, the removal rate of ammonium nitrogen was varied from 64 to 99% depending on the pH of feed solution.

• 멤브레인
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• 제20권4호
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• pp.267-277
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• 2010

가스분리막을 이용한 분리공정은 기존의 분리공정을 대체할 공정으로서 수십 년간 발전이 되어 왔다. 특히 분리막 공정은 가스분리에 있어서 기존공정에 비해서 에너지 소모가 적고 설치에 필요한 공간이 간소하며, 스케일업이 간단한 장점이 있다. 최근에는 기체분리막 공정은 질소발생장치, 수소발생장치, 막제습기, 선박이나 항공기용 불활성기체충진장치, 천연가스 정제, 바이오가스 정제, 연료전지분야에서 널리 사용이 되고 있으며, 향후에는 이산화탄소의 분리에도 강력한 대체공정으로 사용이 될 수 있다. 이러한 가스분리막 공정을 좀 더 널리 보급하기 위해서는 로베슨 플롯의 한계를 넘어설 수 있는 새로운 소재의 개발이 절실하며, 이러한 한계를 돌파하기 위하여 많은 연구자와 회사들이 카도그룹이나 스피로 구조를 가지는 고분자나 PIMs 같은 소재의 개발에 박차를 가하고 있다.