• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.243-248
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• 2005

Membrane pervaporation processes could have advantages over distillation for separation of water/organics mixtures: a low energy demand and the ability to separate azeotropic mixtures or isomers. Zeolite membranes might show better thermal, mechanical and chemical stabilities than polymer membranes. Water could be effectively separated from water/organic mixtures using the NaA zeolite membrane because of its high hydrophilicity. In this study, water was separated by pervaporation using the NaA zeolite membrane from water/ethanol mixtures. As a mole fraction of ethanol increased, the total permeation flux and the water flux decreased while the separation factor increased, reached a maximum point, and decreased. As an experimental temperature increased, the total permeation flux increased while the separation factor increased at the lower mole fraction of ethanol than 0.8 and it decreased at the higher mole fraction of ethanol than 0.8. The total permeation flux and the separation factor could be maintained constant during the long term experiment longer than 160 hours. It was found that the NaA zeolite membrane synthesized in our study showed better performance on water/ethanol separation than that of a distillation process or PVA polymeric pervaporation membranes.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.36-36
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• 1992

This paper deals with the separation of MTBE-methanol mixtures using crosslinked Poly(vinyl alcohol)(PVA) membranes with sulfur-succinic acid(SSA) as a crosslinking agent by pervaporation and vapor permeation technique. The operating temperatures, methanol concentration in feed mixtures, and SSA concentrations in PVA membranes were varied to investigate the separation performance of PVA/SSA membranes and the optimum separation characteristics by pervaporation and vapor permeation. And also, for PVA/SSA membranes, the swelling measurements were carried out to study the transport phenomena. The swelling measurements were carried out for pure MTBE and methanol, and MTBE/methanol=90/10, 80/20 mixtures using PVA/SSA membranes with varying SSA compositions. There are two factors of the membrane network and the hydrogen bonding. In pervaporation separation was also carried out for MTBE/methanol=90/10, 80/20 mixtures at various temperatures. The sulfuric acid group in SSA took an important role in the membrane performance. The crosslinking effect might be over the hydrogen bonding effect due to the sulfuric acid group at 3 and 5% SSA membranes, and this two factors act vice versa on 7% SSA membrane. In this case, the 5% SSA membrane shows the highest separation factor of 2,095 with the flux of 12.79g/㎡·hr for MTBE/methanol=80/20 mixtures at 30℃ which this mixtures show near the azeotopic composition. Compared to pervaporation, vapor permeation showed less flux and similar separation factor. In this case, the flux decreased significantly because of compact structure and the effect of hydrogen bonding. In vapor permeation, density or concentration of methanol in vaporous feed is lower than that of methanol in liquid feed, as a result, the hydrogen bonding portion between the solvent and the hydroxyl group in PVA is reduced in vapor permeation. In this case, the 7% SSA membranes shows the highest separation factor of 2,187 with the flux of 4.84g/㎡·hr for MTBE/methanol=80/20 mixtures at 30℃.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.97-109
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• 2020

Membrane fouling is the main drawback of membrane technology. Frequent membrane cleaning and membrane replacement are, therefore, required to reduce membrane fouling that causes permeate flux reduction, lower rejection, or higher operating pressure. Studies have proved that the alteration of membrane properties is the key controlling factor in lessening membrane fouling. Among stimuli-responsive membranes, thermo-responsive membrane is the most popular, with a drastic phase transition and swelling-shrinking behavior caused by the temperature change. In this study, the thermo-responsive ability of two commercial membranes, PolyCera® Titan membrane and PolyCera® Hydro membrane, at different temperatures was studied on the antifouling function of the membrane in palm oil mill effluent (POME) treatment. The evaluation of the membrane's thermo-responsive ability was done through three cycles of adsorption (fouling) and desorption (defouling) processes in a membrane filtration process. The experimental result depicted that PolyCera® Hydro membrane had a higher membrane permeability of 67.869 L/㎡.h.bar than PolyCera® Titan membrane at 46.011 L/㎡.h.bar. However, the high membrane permeability of PolyCera® Hydro membrane was compensated with low removal efficiency. PolyCera® Titan membrane with a smaller mean pore size had better rejection performance than PolyCera® Hydro membrane for all tested parameters. On the other hand, PolyCera® Titan membrane had a better hydrodynamic cleaning efficiency than PolyCera® Hydro membrane regardless of the hydrodynamic cleaning temperature. The best hydrodynamic cleaning performed by PolyCera® Titan membrane was at 35℃ with the flux recovery ratio (FRR) of 99.17 ± 1.43%. The excellent thermo-responsive properties of the PolyCera® Titan membrane could eventually reduce the frequency of membrane replacement and lessen the use of chemicals for membrane cleaning. This outstanding exploration helps to provide a solution to the chemical industry and membrane technology bottleneck, which is the membrane fouling, thus reducing the operating cost incurred by the membrane fouling.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.367-374
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• 2014

In the present study, disc-type LSCF/GDC (20 : 80 vol%) dual-phase membranes having porous LSC/GDC (50 : 50 vol%) active layers were prepared and effect of active layers on oxygen ion transport behavior was investigated. Introduction of active layers improved drastically oxygen flux due to enhanced electron conductivity and oxygen surface exchange activity. As firing temperature of active layer increased from $900^{\circ}C$ to $1000^{\circ}C$, oxygen flux increased due to improved contact between membrane and active layer or between grains of active layer. The enhanced contact would improve oxygen ion and electron transports from active layer to membrane. Also, as thickness of active layer increased from 10 to $20{\mu}m$, oxygen flux decreased since thick active layer rather prevented oxygen molecules diffusing through the pores. And, STF infiltration improved oxygen flux due to enhanced oxygen reduction reaction rate. The experimental data announces that coating and property control of active layer is an effective method to improve oxygen flux of dual-phase oxygen transport membrane.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.70-75
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• 2016

The reuse of wastewater is being diffused to manage and develop the water resources. Generally, the treated wastewater is discharged to the river after being treated to meet the effluent quality standard or reused for diverse uses through the reprocessing. And recently, as the reuse of the treated wastewater is activated, the technologies to utilize for the high quality water resources such as industrial water by reusing the wastewater with Membrane Distillation (MD) are under development. In this study, the direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) process has been applied to treat sewage discharge water for water reuse. The laboratory scale experiment was performed by using a hydrophobic PVDF membrane with the pore size of $0.22{\mu}m$. The influence of operating parameters, such as feed temperature, feed flow rate, feed concentration, on the permeate flux and rejection has been investigated. All filtration tests were conducted till the feed volume reached a concentration factor of 3.0. Thus, the operating period ranged between 19 hr and 49 hr depending on filtration performance. The results showed that above 92% of TN, TP, COD and TOC in the feed could be rejected regardless of an operating condition. The water flux was ranged from 13.8 to 20.3 LMH. The lowest flux was obtained at the operating condition with the feed temperature of $50^{\circ}C$ and feed flow velocity of 500 mL/min while the highest one was measured with $60^{\circ}C$ and 900 mL/min. When the concentration factor reached 3.0, water flux declined by approximately ranged from 14.5% to 33.3%. But the fouling in MD is almost fully reversible, with more than 90% recovery of permeate water flux following a DI water rinse without the addition of chemical cleaning reagents.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.69-77
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• 2014

To prepare the hollow fiber nanofiltration composite membranes, the poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) membrane was hydrophilized with $K_2Cr_2OH$ and $KMnO_4$ aqueous solutions. And then the composite membrane was synthesized on that membrane surfaces using interfacial polymerization with piperazine (PIP) and trimesoyl chloride (TMC). The resulting membranes were characterized in terms of the rejection and flux for NaCl, $CaSO_4$, $MgCl_2$ 100 ppm solution and 300 ppm of NaCl and $CaSO_4$ mixed solution by varying the coating time, drying time, and the concentration of the coating materials. As a result, the higher rejections were shown for $K_2Cr_2OH$ solutionas a hydrophilization material, and the flux was enhanced while the rejection reduced as the hydrophilization time is longer. Also, the rejection increased and the flux reduced as the concentrations of triethyl amine (TEA) and sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) were higher. Typically, the rejection 50% and flux 40 LMH for NaCl 100 ppm solution, and the rejection 55% and flux 48 LMH for $CaSO_4$ 100 ppm solution were obtained for the PVDF hollow fiber composite membrane prepared with the conditions of PIP 2 wt% (Triethyl amine (TEA) 7 wt%, SLS 20 wt% mixed solution against PIP concentration) and TMC 0.1 wt%.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.64-78
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• 2011

Surface of hydrophobic polyethylene membrane was modified to become hydrophilic by ion beam irradiation. Submerged membrane filtration reactors contained pristine membrane or surface-modified membrane and the influent to reactors was pickled radish wastewater. The objectives of this study was to investigate the variation of flux and pressure and the characteristics of pollutant removal such as organics, suspended solids and nutrients with time. The result of experiments using intermittent pristine membrane showed the occurrence of severe fouling by increasing permeate pressure rapidly in case of pickled radish wastewater but in synthetic wastewater, this phenomenon was not occurred. In experiments of variation flux after chemical cleaning and water cleaning in pristine membrane, chemical cleaning must be necessary for renewals of pollutant membrane. Performance of intermittent operation is higher than that of continuous operation. Reaching fouling time in the case of surface-modified membrane is 6 times as long as pristine membrane. According this reason, replacement expense of surface-modified membrane could be 1/6 of that of pristine membrane. Effluent from this process was relatively good water quality and performance in the removal efficiency of SS, nitrogen and phosphorus was particularly higher.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.263-275
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• 2019

In the present study, thickness of MOR zeolite membranes was controlled by changing seed size, seeding amount, and aging time of hydrothermal solution, and then effect of membrane thickness on pervaporative ethanol dehydration for 90 wt.% ethanol-water mixture was investigated. First, nanosize MOR zeolite seeds with a diameter of 20 to 30 nm was successfully prepared by planetary milling a laboratory synthesized MOR zeolites and the coating amount was controlled by seed concentration and infiltration volume of coating solution during vacuum-assisted seeding. As seeding amount decreased, membrane thickness was reduced up to around $4{\mu}m$. The MOR zeolite membrane having a thickness of $4{\mu}m$ showed a water/ethanol separation factor of 760 and water flux of $1.0kg/m^2h$. The excellent water flux was due to the reduced membrane thickness which was derived from the nanosize seed. Therefore, it could be concluded that membrane thickness control by using nanosize seed can be a crucial factor to improve pervaporative water flux of MOR zeolite membrane.

• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
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• 2004.07a
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• pp.57-68
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• 2004

A demonstrative operation of a membrane system with its caparity of 3,600m$^3$/d was carried out using reservoir water as raw water for the application of membrane filtration system to drinking water treatment. The operation was undertaken at a constant flux of 0.9 m$^3$/m$^2$/d for three months. Backwashing with NaClO of 3 ppm was allowed for 30 seconds every 20 minutes of filtration. Physical cleaning was introduced after 69 times of filtration/backwashing cycle with air-scrubbing and backwashing for 1 minute, and flushing for 2 minutes. In this study, water treatment performance was investigated compared with the existing rapid sand filtration process. The membrane system was operated with no significant problems during the test period. Higher water quality was obtained in the membrane filtration than in the rapid sand filtration in terms of particulate matters such as turbidity and microbes. Although the finished water of the membrane filtration contained slightly higher concentration in dissolved matters than that of the conventional one, it met the drinking water standard. The demonstrative operation showed that membrane filtration has a reliability in drinking water treatment. Researches should be needed on cost analysis through long-term operation and optimization of operation condition for further application.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.368-377
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• 2018

The n-nitrilotris(methylene) phosphonic acid (NTPA) potassium salt was synthesized as a draw solute for forward osmosis. NTPA-4K, NTPA-5K and NTPA-6K were synthesized by varying the content of KOH added to NTPA and confirmed by $^1H$-NMR and $^{13}C$-NMR. The osmotic pressure, viscosity, water flux and reverse salt flux were measured to characterize the draw solute. In the forward osmosis process when distilled water was used as a feed solution and 0.5 M of NTPA-4K, NTPA-5K and NTPA-6K were used as a draw solution, the water flux was 35.8, 38.8 and 42.2 LMH, the reverse salt flux was 5.4, 6.9 and 7.4 gMH, respectively. It was confirmed that the water flux was lower than the conventional NaCl draw solution, but the reverse salt flux was much lower. In order to recover the diluted draw solution, nanofiltration was conducted. The results showed that the draw solute could be retained by above 90%.