• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.245-253
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• 2018

The aim of this study is to investigate the membrane fouling in a thermophilic membrane bioreactor (TMBR) operated different sludge retention times (SRTs). For this purpose, TMBR was operated at four different SRTs (10, 30, 60 and 100 days). Specific cake resistance (${\alpha}$), cake resistance, gel resistance, total resistance, MFI (modified fouling index) and FDR (flux decrease ratio) were calculated for all SRTs. It was observed that flux in the membrane increases with rising SRT although the sludge concentrations in the TMBR increased. The steady state flux was found to be 31.78; 34.70; 39.60 and 43.70 LMH ($Liter/m^2/h$) for the SRTs of 10, 30, 60 and 100 days respectively. The concentrations of extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) and soluble microbial product (SMP) decreased with increasing SRT. The membrane fouling rate was higher at shorter SRT and the highest fouling rate appeared at an SRT of 10 d. Both the sludge cake layer and gel layer had contribution to the fouling resistance, but the gel layer resistance value was dominant in all SRTs.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2016

Temperature correction trans-membrane pressure (TC-TMP) is frequently used as a fouling index in membrane water treatment plants. TC-TMP equation is derived based on an assumption that the total membrane resistance (i.e. the sum of the intrinsic membrane resistance and fouling resistance) is not affected by temperature. This work verified the validity of this assumption using microfiltration (MF) and ultrafiltration (UF) membranes with and without fouling. The foulants used in the work were kaolin (inorganic) and humic acid (organic). The intrinsic resistances of MF and UF membranes remains at constant values regardless of temperature change. When the same amount of foulants were accumulated on the membrane, inorganic fouling resistance with kaolin was constant regardless of temperature change while organic fouling resistance with humic acid decreased at higher temperatures, which means that TC-TMP cannot be used as a fouling index when organic fouling occurs in a real field application. Since TC-TMP underestimates the amount of fouling at higher temperatures, more attention should be necessary in the operation of membrane water treatment plant in a hotter season like summer.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.77-87
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• 2018

In this study, the effects of operating conditions on the formation of reversible and irreversible fouling were investigated in the filtration using ceramic membrane for water treatment process. The effect of coagulation pretreatment on fouling formation was also evaluated by comparing the performance of membrane filtration both with and without addition of coagulant. A resistance-in-series-model was applied for the analysis of membrane fouling. Total resistance (RT) and internal fouling resistance (Rf) increased in the membrane filtration process without coagulation as membrane flux and feed water concentrations increased. Internal fouling resistance, which was not recovered by physical cleaning, was more than 70% of the total resistance at the range of the membrane flux more than $5m^3/m^2{\cdot}day$. In the combined process with coagulation, the cake layer resistance (Rc) increased to about 30-80% of total resistance. As the cake layer formed by coagulation floc was easily removed by physical cleaning, the recovery rate by physical cleaning was 54~90%. It was confirmed from the results that the combined process was more efficient to recover the filtration performance by physical cleaning due to higher formation ratio of reversible fouling, resulted in the mitigation of the frequency of chemical cleaning.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.197-204
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• 2021

In MBR, extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) is known as an important factor of fouling; soluble EPS (sEPS) affects internal contamination of membrane, and bound EPS (bEPS) affects the formation of the cake layer. The production of EPS changes according to the composition of influent, which affects fouling characteristics. Therefore, in this study, the effects of the F/M ratio on the sEPS concentration, bEPS content, and fouling were evaluated. The effects of F/M ratio on the amount and composition of EPS were confirmed by setting conditions that were very low or higher than the general F/M ratio of MBR, and the fouling occurrence characteristics were evaluated by filtration resistance distribution. As a result, it was found that the sEPS increased significantly with the increase of the F/M ratio. When the substrate was depleted, bEPS content decreased because bEPS was hydrolyzed into BAP and seemed to be used as a substrate. In contrast, when the substrate is sufficient, UAP (utilization-associated products) was rapidly generated in proportion with the consumption of the substrate. UAP has a relatively higher Protein/Carbohydrate ratio (P/C ratio) than BAP, and this means, it has a higher adhesive force to the membrane surface. As a result, UAP seems like causing fouling rather than BAP (biomass-associated products). Therefore, R_f (Resistance of internal contamination) increased rapidly with the increase of UAP, and R_c (Resistance of cake layer) increased with the accumulation of bEPS in proportion, and as a result, the fouling interval was shortened. According to this study, a high F/M ratio leads to an increment in UAP generation and accumulation of bEPS, and by these UAP and bEPS, membrane fouling is promoted.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.632-638
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• 2005

Membrane fouling index such as Silt Density Index (SDI) and Modified Fouling Index (MFI) is an important parameter in design of the integrated RO/NF membrane processes for drinking water treatment. In this study, the effect of particle, membrane and feed water characteristics on membrane fouling index were investigated systematically. Higher fouling index values were observed when filtering suspensions with smaller particle size and higher feed particle concentration. Larger membrane resistance due to smaller pore size resulted in an increased membrane fouling index. The variations of feed water hardness and TDS concentrations did not show any impact on fouling index, suggesting that there were no significant colloidal interactions among particles and thus the porosity of particle cake layer accumulated on the membrane surface could be assumed to be 0.36 according to random packing density. Based on the experimental observations, fundamental membrane fouling index model was developed using Happel Cell. The effect of primary model parameters including particle size ($a_p$), particle concentration ($C_o$), membrane resistance ($R_m$), were accurately assessed without any fitting parameters, and the prediction of membrane fouling index such as MFI exhibited very good agreement with the experimental results.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.645-652
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• 2016

A membrane module including grid was designed and introduced to MBR (membrane bio-reactor) for the purpose of better control of membrane fouling. It could be anticipated that the grid enhances the shear force of fluid-air mixture into the membrane surface by even-distributing the fluid-air to the membrane module. As MLSS concentration, packing density which is expressed in the ratio of the housing and the cross-sectional area of membrane fibers ($A_m/A_t$) and air-flow rate were changed, membrane foulings were checked by monitoring fouling resistances. The total fouling resistance ($R_c+R_f$) without grid installation (i.e., control) was $2.13{\times}10^{12}m^{-1}$, whereas it was reduced to $1.69{\times}10^{12}m^{-1}$ after the grid was installed. Regardless of the grid installation, the $R_c+R_f$ increased as the packing density increased from 0.09 to 0.28, however, the increment of resistance for the grid installation was less than that of the control. Increase in the air flow rate did not always guarantee the reduction of fouling resistance, indicating that the higher air flow rate can partially de-flocculate the activated sludge flocs, which led to severer membrane fouling. Consequently, installation of grids inside the housing have brought a beneficial effect on membrane fouling and optimum air flow rate is important to keep the membrane lowering fouling.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.17-22
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• 2006

This study is about backwash condition and membrane fouling at continuous coagulation/ultrafiltration process in water treatment. The capacity of pilot plant was $0.06m^3/d$. The result of the test, Backwash cycle time and duration time had a significant effect on the efficiency of system and backwash. Backwash duration time was determined to be fixed in 30 seconds for the system with more than 95% recovery rate, It needed 30 minute backwash frequency. During the continuous operation, membrane fouling was analyzed by determining the filtration resistance ($R_i$) and cake layer resistance ($R_c$). At the initial stage, filtration resistance highly influenced the fouling behavior. But after 1.5 hours, cake layer resistance became more important than filtration resistant.

• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.53 no.5
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• pp.400-409
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• 2016

In recent, shipping companies have made an enormous effort to improve the operation of vessel in various approaches, due to recession of shipping market and increasing competition among shipping companies. One of important parameters for improving the efficiency of vessel is the resistance performance that consist of friction and residual resistance. Especially, it is recognized that the friction resistance tends to be affected by conditions of vessel’s surface and occupies approximately 70~90% of the total resistance for slow speed ships. In general, the surface of vessel is covered with various type of paint to reduce fouling and corrosion. As time goes by, however, it is so hull roughness would be increased by fouling over the wetted surface that anti-fouling paints, such as CDP(Controlled Depletion Paint), Tin-Free SPC(Self Polishing Co-polymer) or Foul Release, are applied evenly on the hull surface. Nevertheless, these anti-fouling paints could not prevent fouling absolutely. A fundamental study on evaluating ship resistance performance variation due to hull roughness has been performed using a commercial software, Star-CCM+, which solves the continuity and Navier-Stokes equations for incompressible and viscous flow. The results of present simulation for plate are compared with some experimental data available and the effect of surface roughness to ship resistance performance is discussed.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.389-395
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• 2017

In this paper, we investigate the characteristics of membrane fouling caused by water temperature in the Membrane bioreactor(MBR) process and try to derive the membrane fouling control by chemical enhanced backwashing(CEB). The extracellular polymeric substances(EPS) concentration was analyzed according to the water temperature in the MBR, and the membrane fouling characteristics were investigated according to the conditions, with sludge & without sludge, through a lab-scale reactor. As shown in the existing literature the fouling resistance rate was increased within sludge with the water temperature was lowered. However, in the lab-scale test using the synthetic wastewater, the fouling resistance increased with the water temperature. This is because that the protein of the EPS was more easily adsorbed on the membrane surface due to the increase of entropy due to the structural rearrangement of the protein inside the protein as the water temperature increases. In order to control membrane fouling, we tried to derive the cleaning characteristics of CEB by using sodium hypochlorite(NaOCl). We selected the condition with the chemicals and the retention time, and the higher the water temperature and the chemical concentration are the higher the efficiencies. It is considered that the increasing temperature accelerated the chemical reaction such as protein peptide binding and hydrolysis, so that the attached proteinaceous structure was dissolved and the frequency of the reaction collision with the protein with the chemical agent becomes higher. These results suggest that the MBRs operation focus on the fouling control of cake layer on membrane surface in low temperatures. On the other hand, the higher the water temperature is the more the operation strategies of fouling control by soluble EPS adsorption are needed.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.29 no.8
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• pp.391-400
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• 2017

Understanding of seawater fouling characteristics is critical in designing a heat exchanger adapted in an effluent utilization system for a power plant. We reviewed three types of fouling mechanisms of general, biological, and crystallizing for a plate-frame heat exchanger, to be used for heat exchanging with heated effluent from a power plant. Also, mathematical models for each type of seawater fouling were suggested. Actual thermal resistance calculated from seawater fouling models were compared and implemented in designing a plate-frame heat exchanger. The bio-fouling model revealed the largest thermal resistance and the highest number of plates for a plate-frame heat exchanger under the same heat load. Overall heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop of a plate-frame heat exchanger under fouling conditions was lower by 58 percent and higher by 2.85 times than those under clean conditions, respectively.