• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.73-80
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• 2004

This study investigated the phenomena of membrane fouling by NOM and the effect of the fouling on removal of micro-pollutants. NOM has a great effect on decline of permeate flux. Permeate flow rate was reduced by 88% in RO and 34.8% in NF for 323hr operation period. Removal rate of $UV_{254}$, is 87.4% in RO and 78.5% in NF and removal rate of DOC is 42.7% in RO and 32.9% in NF for 2mg/l humic acid. Removal efficiency of the micro-pollutants by the RO and NF membranes fouled by humic acid was mostly lower than that by the new membrane. The concentration polarization which affects the flux and the rejection was thought to occur in the active layer of the membrane, as the membrane was getting fouled.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.323-337
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• 2015

Membrane Fouling was considered as major drawback in various industrial applications. Thus, this paper reviews the surface modification of polyethersulfone (PES) membranes for antifouling performance. Various modification techniques clearly indicate that hydrophilicity has to improve on the PES membrane surface. Moreover, the mechanism of fouling reduction with corresponds to various modification methods is widely discussed. Incorporation of hydrophilic functional groups on PES membrane surface enhances the surface free energy thereby which reduces the fouling. Characterization techniques adopted for the surface modified membranes was also discussed. These studies might be useful for the other researchers to utilize the modification technique for the applications of waste water treatment, chemical process industry and food industry.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.171-176
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• 2011

Membrane fouling is formed due to pore blocking and cake formation by suspended material or contaminant in the membrane boundary layer. Membrane fouling is main obstacle for the wider application of industrial water treatment. The objective of this paper is to study the direct monitoring technique for the measuring the membrane fouling in real time. We investigated the extracted image of R, G, and B by visible light irradiation of 360 nm wavelength to measure the membrane fouling in real time by transparent foulant. The intensity of B of 400~499 nm wavelength range was stronger than that of R and G. The fluorescence image extraction analysis appeared to be a very attractive technique for monitoring the membrane fouling in real time.

• 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.16 no.6
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• pp.717-725
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• 2002

A bench-scale submerged-type membrane filtration system (SMFS) was constructed to study a feasibility of membrane filtration for solid-liquid separation in water and wastewater treatment processes. In the case of applying the SMFS to a biological wastewater treatment process, so-called membrane bioreactor, aeration underneath membrane modules is usually employed in order to provide oxygen demand for microbial growth as well as to control membrane fouling. A study was investigated the effects of operation parameters by aeration intensity, feed concentration, foulant type and airlift pore size on critical flux. Critical flux tends to increase with aeration rate. Optimal aeration flow rate was found to be 10 L/min/module. Feed concentration and foulant type has a significant effect on membrane fouling and filtration performance. But downward position and pore size of airlift has no a significant effects on membrane fouling and filtration performance.

• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
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• 2003.05a
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• pp.31-38
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• 2003

A pilot scale biofilter pretreatment-microfiltration system (BF-MF) was operated to investigate the effect of biofilter treatment in fouling reduction of microfiltration. Biofiltration was expected to reduce the membrane fouling by removal of turbidity and metal oxides. The hollow-fiber MF module with a nominal pore size of 0.1$\mu$m and a surface area of 8m$^2$ was submerged in a filtration tank and microfiltration was operated at a constant flux of 0.5 m/d. Biofiltration using polypropylene pellets was performed at a high filtration velocity of 320 m/d. Two experimental setups composed of MF and BF/MF, i.e., without and with biofilter pretreatment, were compared. Throughout the experimental period of 9 months, biofilter pretreatment was effective to reduce the membrane fouling, which was proved by the result of time variations of trans-membrane pressure and backwash conditions. The turbidity removal rate by biofiltration varied between 40% to 80% due to the periodic washing for biofilter contactor and raw water turbidity. In addition to turbidity, metals, especially Mn, Fe and Al were removed effectively with average removal rates of 89.2%, 67.8% and 64.9%, respectively. Further analysis of foulants on the used membranes revealed that turbidity and metal removal by biofiltration was the major effect of biofiltration pretreatment against microfiltration fouling.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.434-440
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• 2017

Electrical impedance spectroscopy is used to detect membrane fouling in-situ in reverse electrodialysis. The impedance data for the AMX membrane being fouled in the reverse electrodialysis are plotted and analyzed by Nyquist and admittance method. The meaningful graphical analyses for the fouling phenomena could be done by both Nyquist and admittance method. In addition, the unstable initial fouling stage was identified by the admittance data with high standard deviation, and the structural change of the fouling layer formed at the surface of anion-exchange membranes with the operation time of reverse electrodialysis was also detected.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.545-551
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• 2016

This study compares characteristic of membrane fouling in MBR-RO systems. In lab. scale MBRs test, MBRs were operated at different Flux(10, 20, 30 & 40 LMH) and temperature(10, 15, 20, 25 & $30^{\circ}C$). The results show that MBR permeate was measured lower amounts of organic substances in Higher flux and lower temperature and led to lower RO fouling rates. The main cause was that due to cake fouling formed on membrane surfaces in MBRs. Under both cases, Cake layer of membrane surfaces formed in MBRs removed RO fouling factors, polysaccharide and protein, because of cake layer attached on membrane surfaces greater amounts of organic substances. This study implies that optimization of MBR with operating conditions is a crucial strategy to RO membrane fouling control.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.221-230
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• 2012

This study employed the modified fouling index (MFI) to determine the performance of a two-step recycling system - a membrane filtration integrated laminar flow water storage (LFWS) tank followed by an ion exchange process to reclaim ultrapure water (UPW) from the wastewater generated from semiconductor wafer backgrinding and sawing processes. The first step consisted of the utilization of either ultrafiltration (UF) or nanofiltration (NF) membranes to remove solids in the wastewater where the second step consisted of an ion exchanger to further purify the filtrate. The system was able to produce high purity water in a continuous operating mode. However, higher recycling cost could be incurred due to membrane fouling. The feed wastewater used for this study contained high concentration of fine particles with low organic and ionic contents, hence membrane fouling was mainly attributed to particulate deposition and cake formation. Based on the MFI results, a LFWS tank that was equipped with a turbulence reducer with a pair of auto-valves was developed and found effective in minimizing fouling by discharging concentrated wastewater prior to any membrane filtration. By comparing flux behaviors of the improved system with the conventional system, the former maintained a high flux than the latter at the end of the experiment.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.283-290
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• 2003

To improve membrane performance, the dead-end and Cross-flow ultrafiltration with or without ultrasound irradiation onto the membrane module were carried out using a BSA protein solution. Intermittent or continuous irradiation of ultrasound effectively suppressed the formation of fouling on membrane or removed the fouling layers from membrane. Effect of ultrasound irradiation on the enhancement of ultrafiltration performance was more increased at the operating conditions which form more membrane fouling (at the operating conditions of higher feed concentration and TMP, and lower flow rate). The permeate flukes were enhanced up to 1.9 times in case of the dead-end ultrafiltration and 1.5 times in case of the cross-flow ultrafiltration by ultrasound irradiation onto the membrane module.