• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.775-780
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• 2005

This study was performed to investigate the effect of foulant characteristics on Membrane fouling index such as Silt Density Index (SDI) and Modified Fouling Index (MFI). A linear relationship was found relating the fouling index (both SDI and MFI) on particle concentration, but fouling index values were nonlinearly (exponentially) with increasing organic concentration. When organic matter was the primary cause of fouling, the MFI was not accurately predicted due to internal fouling such as pore adsorption. The fouling index was determined mainly by particle characteristics when both particle and organic coexisted in the feed water. This observation was attributed to lessening of organic pore adsorption by particle cake layer formed on the membrane surface. Bench-scale actual fouling experiments demonstrated that permeate flux declines much faster with feed water containing particles than organic matters although fouling potential predicted by SDI values were identical, indicating that the accurate prediction of fouling potential requires the development of fouling index reflecting different foulant characteristics.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.159-168
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• 2002

A lab-scale Reverse Osmosis(RO) membrane reactor was installed to investigate the membrane permeability, characteristics of membrane fouling at each conditions, and performance of elimination at different trans-membrane pressure(TMP) in the liquid fertilizer accumulated system. Experimental setup was divided to three different TMP conditions. As a result of experiment, permeability of RO membrane was proportional to the increase of TMP and temperature. After experiment was completed, two types chemical cleaning(remove the organic foulant and inorganic foulant) was done, and recover rate of permeability was each 99.8, 99.7 and 99.7%, respectively. From this experimental data, membrane fouling could be determined that the most of it was recoverable in this system, and major reason of fouling was concentration polarization. Elimination rate of solute substance in the liquid fertilizer indicated very stable(above 99%), except ammonia nitrogen, and the most stable elimination rate was investigated at the highest TMP condition (Run 3).

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.22 no.12
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• pp.2205-2213
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• 2000

To investigate removal efficiency of dissolved matter by NF and RO, a pilot plant was operated for six months using groundwater treated by UF membrane. After the pilot plant operation, we performed autopsy test to identify characteristics of foulant attached on the membrane surface applying the used NF and RO in the pilot plant test. In autopsy test, we measured permeate flux and recovery rate of flux by chemical cleaning in each membrane. We also analyzed chemical cleaning disposal to examine component of foulant. Permeate flux of NF and RO1 showed rapid decline after 100 days of operation. Especially, reduction of specific flux in RO1 was more serious than in NF. Specific flux of RO2 with a low recovery rate resulted in gradual flux decline. Removal efficiencies of dissolved inorganic matters as a conductivity were 76.3%, 88.2% and 95.3% respectively for NF, RO1 and RO2, and RO2 presented the highest removal efficiency. And those of dissolved organic matters as TOC were about 80% for both NF and RO. The specific flux of membranes declined gradually from the feed water inlet to outlet of the membrane module and it showed that membrane fouling increased along the feed flow direction. Namely, concentration of pollutants became higher and volume of feed water was less as the feed flow approached to the outlet. It seemed that major foul ants were Ca consolidated into inorganic material and Si consolidated into organic material on the membrane surface. Fe was a great contribution to irreversible fouling. The SEM results indicated that the organic matter was attached to the first layer, closer to the membrane, and then inorganic matter with tetragonal shape layered over them. We could not observe biofouling because microorganism, which was cause of biofouling, was almost pretreated in UF membrane.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.3
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• pp.581-588
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• 2020

The membrane fouling is an important problem for FO applied to the radioactive wastewater treatment. The FO fouling characteristics for simulated radioactive wastewater treatment was investigated. On-line cleaning by deionized (DI) water and external cleaning by ultrasound and HCl were applied for the fouled membrane. The effectiveness and foulant removing amount by each-step cleaning were evaluated. The membrane fouling was divided into three stages. Co(II), Sr(II), Cs(I), Na(I) were all found deposited on both active and support layers of the membrane surface, resulting in membrane surface became rougher and more hydrophobic, which increased membrane resistance. On-line cleaning by DI water recovered the water flux to 69%. HCl removed more foulants than ultrasound.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.327-334
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• 2016

The effects of dissolved inorganic and organic matter in seawater and the characteristics of fouling on the membrane surface were investigated within membrane distillation (MD) process. The changes of the membrane flux of PE and PVDF hollow fiber membranes under natural and synthetic seawater were compared with given variances of temperature. The flux of both membranes under the synthetic seawater, without any organic matter, were higher than that of the natural seawater, indicating the organic fouling on the membrane surface. The surface of the membrane was analyzed using scanning electron microscope (SEM) to examine the fouling. The experiment with organics has shown the formation of thin film over the membrane surface, while the experiment with inorganics has shown only the formation of inorganic crystals. The results indicated the organic matter as the major foulants and that the organics affected the formation of the crystals. Permeate water conductivity of all conditions verified the quality of the water to be better if not similar to that of RO.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.785-793
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• 2004

Coagulation has been investigated for pretreatment of low-pressure membrane systems such as microfiltration and ultrafiltration. Coagulation pretreatment can reduce foulants (particles and organic matter) prior to membrane filtration. However, when in-line coagulation or submerged type of filtration is used, flocculent aggregates could act as a foulant depending on concentrations and specific properties of floc. A natural water and three synthetic waters were used to investigate effects of coagulation pretreatment and presence of flocculent aggregates on membrane fouling. Coagulation pretreatment shows that foul ants were effectively removed during coagulation and the formed cake layer on the membrane surface had less resistances compared to raw natural water. In addition, little difference in membrane fouling was found by flocculent aggregates from the natural water. Interestingly, however, the results by three synthetic waters indicated that flocculent aggregates could have adverse effects on membrane fouling in a specific condition.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.131-140
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• 2008

The application of magnetic ion exchange resin($MIEX^{(R)}$) is effective for natural organic matter(NOM) removal and for control of the formation of disinfection byproducts(DBPs). NOM removal is also enhanced by adding $MIEX^{(R)}$ with coagulant such as polyaluminium chloride(PACl) in conventional drinking water treatment systems. In the application of $MIEX^{(R)}$, it is important to understand changes of NOM characteristics such as hydrophobicity and molecular weight distributions with $MIEX^{(R)}$ or $MIEX^{(R)}$+coagulant treatment.To observe characteristics of NOM by treatment with $MIEX^{(R)}$ or $MIEX^{(R)}$+coagulant, four major drinking water sources were employed. Results showed that the addition of $MIEX^{(R)}$ to coagulation significantly reduced the amount of coagulant required for the optimum removal of dissolved organic matter(DOC) and turbidity in the all four waters. The DOC removal was also increased approximately 20%, compared to coagulant treatment alone. The process with $MIEX^{(R)}$ and coagulant showed that complementary removal of hydrophobic and hydrophilic fraction of DOC. The combined processes preferentially removed the fractions of intermediate (3,000-10,000 Da) and low (< 500 Da) molecular weight. The microfiltration test showed that membrane cake resistance was decreased for waters with flocs from $MIEX^{(R)}$+coagulant. A porous layer was formed to $MIEX^{(R)}$ on the membrane surface and the layer consequently inhibited settling of coagulant flocs, which could act on a foulant.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.276-284
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• 2014

In this study, a hydrophobic polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membrane was modified by coating neutral hydrophilic poly(vinyl alcohol). The flux of pure water was measured and then fouling test was conducted with bovin serum albumin (BSA) as model protein foulant. As a result, the experiments showed that pure water flux was decreased but anti-fouling property was significantly enhanced. Pure water flux with increasing molecular weights of the polymer was decreased and fouling resistance was enhanced. Also, Pure water flux with increasing solution concentration was decreased and fouling resistance was enhanced. It is probably due to the increase in hydrophilicity and decrease in roughness of the membrane surface, as revealed by contact angle and AFM analysis.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.43-52
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• 2017

The air injection nozzle tube was inserted inside of the tubular membrane module to reduce membrane fouling and improve the permeate flux. The average pore size of membrane was $0.1\;{\mu}m$ and the yeast was used as a foulant. All of permeate experiments were started without air injection for the module equipped with the nozzle tube, then carried out continuously with air injection. Finally, the nozzle tube was removed from the module and the permeate was measured without air injection. The measured permeate fluxes were compared to examine the effect of air injection. The fluxes for air injection were consistently maintained or increased. The fluxes of no-air injection with the nozzle tube were greater than those of the empty tubular module. As operating pressure decreased to 0.4 bar, the flux enhancement of air injection based on no-nozzle case increased to 21%. Flux enhancements of air injection were above 30% as the gas/liquid two-phase flow was changed from the stratified-smooth to the intermittent pattern due to increase of gas flowrate.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.425-436
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• 2021

In this study, chemically enhanced steam cleaning(CESC) was applied as a novel and efficient method for the control of organic and inorganic fouling in ceramic membrane filtration. The constant filtration regression model and the resistance in series model(RISM) were used to investigate the membrane fouling mechanisms. For total filtration, the coefficient of determination(R²) with an approximate value of 1 was obtained in the intermediate blocking model which is considered as the dominant contamination mechanism. In addition, most of the coefficient values showed similar values and this means that the complex fouling was formed during the filtration period. In the RISM, R _c/R _f increased about 4.37 times in chemically enhanced steam cleaning compared to physical backwashing, which implies that the internal fouling resistance was converted to cake layer resistance, so that the membrane fouling hardly to be removed by physical backwashing could be efficiently removed by chemically enhanced steam cleaning. The results of flux recovery rate showed that high-temperature steam may loosen the structure of the membrane cake layer due to the increase in diffusivity and solubility of chemicals and finally enhance the cleaning effect. As a consequence, it is expected that chemically enhanced steam cleaning can drastically improve the efficiency of membrane filtration process when the characteristics of the foulant are identified.