• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.191-202
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• 2013

The application of ultrafiltration operation to the dialysis in countercurrently parallel-flow rectangular membrane modules was investigated. The assumption of uniform ultrafiltration flux was made for operation with slight concentration polarization and declination of transmembrane pressure. Considerable improvement in mass transfer is achievable if the operation of ultrafiltration is applied, especially for the system with low mass transfer coefficient. The enhancement in separation efficiency is significantly increased with increasing ultrafiltration flux, as well as with increasing the volumetric flow rates. Furthermore, increasing the volumetric flow rate in retentate phase is more beneficial to mass transfer than increasing in dialysate phase.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.320-326
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• 1999

The effects of operating pressure, lactate concentration, impurities, and pH on solution flux and lactate rejection in nanofiltration were investigated with model sodium lactate solutions (lactate 10~200g/L) as a model system. In the tested range of pressure(80~140 psig), the solution flux was observed to be proportional to the operating pressure and the rejection of lactate increased only slightly with the pressure. Both of the flux and the rejection decreased with lactate concentration, while the recovery rate of lactate increased. The effects of glucose and yeast extract as impurities on lactate rejection were negligible, but the flux decreased significantly with the addition of yeast extract. At low lactate concentrations, the rejection of lactate increased with pH due to the increased repulsion (Donnan exclusion effect) between lactate ions and membrane surface. But, at high lactate concentrations, the donnan effect was observed to be overwhelmed by the effect of sodium ions added to adjust the pH, and the rejection of lactate decreased with pH. When fermentation broth containing about 89g/L of lactate was nanofiltered, the flux and the rejection of lactate were 2.8L/$m^2$h and 5%, respectively at 120psig. Both of them were slightly lower than those with model solutions. The recovery rate was 2.6mol/$m^2$h.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.78-95
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• 1991

Water factory 21(WF 2) in Orange County California, is a advanced wastewater treatment(AWT) plant designed to reclaim biologically treated munidpal wastewater for injection into a seawater barrier system. Processes included are lime treatment air stripping, filtration, activated carbon adsorption, reverse osmosis(RO), and chlorination. The effectiveness of each treatment process is presented including pretreatment, RO dimineralization. The data collected show that the processes, including RO, used at WF-21 are capable of producing a very high quality water on a reliable basis. Treatment reduced all contaminants, to levels below national primary drinldng water regulation maximum contaminant levels. It was found that lime clarified secondary effluent can be used as feedwater to a RO dimineralizer. Experiments with new low pressure membrane(250psi) show great potential for reducing RO cost.

• Macromolecular Research
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• v.16 no.7
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• pp.590-595
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• 2008

The pressure driven membrane process has been a breakthrough in the removal of pollutants from drinking water. These experiments examined the removal of chlorophenol compounds from water using low pressure membranes. The removal performance of the membranes was based primarily on size exclusion. Apart from size exclusion, the polarity and pKa of the compounds also influences the membrane performance. The molecular size and dipole moments of the respective molecules were calculated using a quantum chemical method. The rejection of pollutants also followed the same trend as salt rejection by the membranes.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2008

After membrane fouling factors in acrylic wastewater were minimized by pretreatment process accompanied with coagulation-filtration-neutralization, it was utilized in UF/RO process. After composing of ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis module set according to types and kinds of membrane, the separation characteristics were examined with the variation temperature and pressure using pretreated acrylic wastewater by membrane module sets. It was found that permeate flux of UF module in module set 4 was about two${\sim}$three times larger than that of UF module in module set 1. Final quantity of permeate from the module set 2 and module set 3 combined with tubular module was shown very good result. It was shown that the removal efficiency of TDS, T-N and COD was very low and was not dependent on the variation of temperature and pressure in all UF modules. The removal efficiency of TDS, T-N and COD was very excellent in RO module. Final water quality of acrylic wastewater was satisfied with effluent allowances limit and membrane module sets were ascertained to reuse wastewater.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.25-35
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• 1999

The sorption and permeation experiments with $O_2$ and $N_2$ were performed with poly sulfone hollow-fiber membrane to obtain oxygen-enriched air. Sorption of $O_2$ on poly sulfone membrane was 1.5'||'&'||'not;2.0 times higher than that of N2. Sorption of oxygen and nitrogen in poly sulfone membrane was described satisfactorily with "dual-mode sorption model". In the low pressure range below 3kgr!cm', about 85% of total sorption was Langmuir-type sorption and only 15% was Henry-type sorption. In the higher pressure above 3kgf/${cm}^2$, Langmuir sorption sites became almost saturated and reached asymptote, and the increase in total sorption with pressurizing might be due to the Henry~type sorption. The ideal separation factor ( P $O_2$/ P $N_2$) was in the range of 2~4, while the actual separation factor for the mixture was reduced to the value of 1.7~2.2.2.2.

• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
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• 1998.10a
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• pp.15-18
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• 1998

Membrane reactors are systems which combine a chemical reactor with a membrane separation process allowing to carry out simultaneously conversion and product separation. The catalyst can be immobilized on the membrane or simply compartmentalized in a reaction space by the membrane. Membrane reactors are today investigated to produce optically pure isomers and/or resolve racemic mixture of enantiomers. The interest towards these systems is due to the increasing demand of enantiomerically pure compounds to be used in the pharmaceutical, food, and agrochemical industries. In fact, enantiomers can have different biological activities, which often influence the efficacy or toxicity of the compound. On the basis of current literature there are basically two schemes on the use of membrane technology to produce enantiomers. In one case, the membrane itseft is intrinsically enantioselective: the membrane is the chiral system which selectively separates the wanted isomer on the basis of its conformation. In the other, a kinetic resolution using an enantiospecific biocatalyst is combined with a membrane separation process; the membrane separates the product from the substrate on the basis of their relative chemical properties (i.e. solubility). This kind of configuration is widely used to carry out kinetic resolutions of low water soluble substrams in biphasic membrane reactors [Giomo, 1995, 1997; Lopez, 1997]. These are systems where enzyme-loaded membranes promote reactions between two separate phases thanks to the properties of enzymes, such as lipases, to catalyse reactions at the org ic/aqueous interface; the two phases are maintained in contact and separated at the membrane level by operating at appropriate transmembrane pressure. A schematic representation of biphasic membrane reactor is shown in figure 1, while an example of enantiospecific reaction and product separation carried out with these systems is reported in figure 2.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.79-82
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• 1993

The sorption equilibria and permeabilities for $CO_2$ in a homogeneous membrane of polystyrene with the glass transition temperature of $95^{\circ}C$ were measured at a temperature of $60^{\circ}C$ and gas pressures up to 1.6 MPa and 2.5 MPa, respectively. The sorption isotherm had the form af dual-mode sorption model at low gas pressures, but became linear at pressures above 1.3 MPa. The linear portion of the isotherm extrapolated to the origin. The pressure dependence of the rnean permeability coefficient deviated upward from the dualsrhode mobility model prediction. It was found that the glass transition was brought out by the plasticization action of sotbed $CO_2$ at a gas pressure of 1.3 MPa from the sorption isotherm. And this result was consistent with an increase in the mean permeability coefficient with applied gas pressure.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.85-93
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• 2023

Membrane separation is widely used for several applications such as water treatment, membrane reactors and climate change. Cross-linked organic-inorganic hybrid polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) / Tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) was adopted for the preparation of optimized hollow membrane (HFM) for membrane distillation or other low pressure separators for mechanical properties and permeability under varying pretreatment schemes. HFMs were prepared on semi-pilot membrane fabrication system. Novel adopted post-treatment schemes involved soaking in glycerol, magnesium sulphate (MgSO₄), sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl), and isopropanol for different durations. All fibers were characterized for morphology using a scanning electron microscope (SEM), surface roughness using atomic force microscope (AFM), elemental composition by examining Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS), water contact angle (CA°) and porosity. The performance of the fibers was evaluated for pure water permeation flux (PWF). Post-treatment with MgSO₄ gave the highest both tensile modulus and flux. Assessment of properties and performance revealed comparable results with other organic-inorganic separators, HF or flat. In spite of few reported data on post treatment using MgSO₄ in presence of TEOS, this proves the potential of low cost treatment without negative impact on other membrane properties. The flux is also comparable with hypochlorite which manifests substantial precaution requirements in actual industrial use.The relatively high values of flux/bar for sample treated with TEOS, post treated with MgSO₄ and hypochlorite are 88 and 82 LMH/bar respectively.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.109-126
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• 2013

Surface modification by low-pressure ammonia ($NH_3$) plasma on commercial thin-film composite (TFC) membranes was investigated in this study. Surface hydrophilicity, total surface free energy, ion exchange capacity (IEC) and zeta (${\zeta}$)-potentials were determined for the TFC membranes. Qualitative and quantitative analyses of the membrane surface chemistry were conducted by attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared (ATR FT-IR) spectroscopy. Results showed that the $NH_3$ plasma treatment increased the surface hydrophilicity, in particular at a plasma treatment time longer than 5 min at 50 W of plasma power. Total surface free energy was influenced by the basic polar components introduced by the $NH_3$ plasma, and isoelectric point (IEP) was shifted to higher pH region after the modification. A ten (10) min $NH_3$ plasma treatment at 90 W was found to be adequate for the TFC membrane modification, resulting in a membrane with better characteristics than the TFC membranes without the modification for water treatment. The thin-film chemistry (i.e., fully-aromatic and semi-aromatic nature in the interfacial polymerization) influenced the initial stage of plasma modification.