• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.35 no.12
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• pp.877-882
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• 2013

The application of ultrafiltration (UF) and microfiltration (MF) membranes has been increased for drinking water purification. The advantages of UF/MF membrane process compared to conventional treatment processes are stable operation under varying feed water quality, smaller construction area, and automatic operation. Most membrane treatment plants are designed with polymeric membranes. Recently, some studies suggested that the process of treating surface water with ceramic membranes is competitive to the application of polymeric membranes. Higher water flux, less frequent cleaning, and much longer lifetime are the advantages of ceramic membrane comparing to polymeric membrane. Therefore, this research focused on the application of ceramic MF membrane pilot plant at the slow sand filtration plant. The ceramic membrane pilot plant has three trains that used raw water and sand filtered water as a feed water, respectively. For optimizing the pilot plant process, the coagulation with PACl coagulant was used as a pretreatment of ceramic membrane process. In addition, CEB (Chemical Enhanced Backwash) process using $H_2SO_4$ and NaOCl was used for 1.5 days, respectively. The experimental results showed that applying the optimum coagulant dose before membrane filtration showed enhancing membrane fluxes for both raw water and sand filtered water. Also, when using raw water as a feed of membrane, minimum fouling rate was 2.173 kPa/cycle with 25 mg/L of PACl and when using sand filtered water, the minimum fouling rate was 0.301 kPa/cycle with 5 mg/L of PACl.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.148-156
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• 2012

In this research, the application of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) modified PVDF (polyvinylidene fluoride) membrane was tested as a simply and beginning attempt to overcome membrane fouling because CNTs importantly affect the transport of natural organic matter (NOM). Suwannee River fulvic acid (SRFA) as the representative of NOM was selected and its sorption results with single-walled CNT (SWCNT), multi-walled CNT (MWCNT), and oxidized MWCNT (O-MWCNT) were obtained through the batch experiment. SRFA sorption isotherms had a strong nonlinearity and its sorption capacity followed the order O-MWCNT < MWCNT < SWCNT. The adsorbed mass of SRFA on each CNT decreased as a function of pH due to their charge repulsion. For the CNT-PVDF membrane filtration experiments, the suspended CNT solution (10 mg/40 mL) was incorporated into $0.45{\mu}m$-PVDF membrane and 5 mg/L of SRFA solution was monitored using UV detector connected with high pressure pump after passing through CNT-PVDF membrane. The SRFA removal efficiency by MWCNT-PVDF membrane was the strongest among other modified membranes. This suggests that the CNT modified microfiltration (MF) membrane might effectively and selectively apply to treat the contaminated water including organic compounds in the presence of NOM.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.113-119
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• 2010

Biodiesel was produced from Canola, soybean and Jatropha oils combined methanol using continuously recycled membrane reactor. The membrane served to react and separate the unreacted oil from the product stream, producing high-purity fatty acid methyl ester (FAME). Two ceramic tubular membranes having different nominal pore sizes of 0.2 and 0.5 ${\mu}m$ were used. Permeate was observed at 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0 bar with a given flow rate, respectively. The permeate flux for 0.2 ${\mu}m$ membrane at 0.5 bar and 400 mL/min flow rate was 15 L/$m^2{\cdot}hr$. Also FAME content in permeate was the highest at 0.5 bar, and decreased with increasing operating pressure.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.213-220
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• 2006

Microfiltration and Nanofiltration membrane were prepared and properties of the membrane system were studied for the application of desaltingfrefiningiconcentrating process of dye production. The membrane system improved the quality of dye produce and productivity was enhanced due to reduction of processing steps and material cost. Membrane and pressure type membrane element in various dye concentration for using desaltingirefiningiconcentrating of dye processing were investigated.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.161-169
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• 2001

Single and mixed particle suspensions of kaolin, bentonite, starch and PMMA were carried out using a dead-end Amicon fi1tration cell with microfilteration membranes. The experimental data of permeate fluxes were fitted by the constant pressure fi1tration models in order to investigate fouling steps. In 0.1 wt% mixed solution of equal amount of kaolin and starch, the permeation flux was about 30% lower than the average of each particle flux. However, the permeation flux for kaolin/PMMA mixed solution was about 10% higher than the average of each particle flux. In the cases of bentonite and PMMA or starch mired solution, the improvement effect on permeation flux was weaken than that of kaolin mixed solution. Also, the membrane fouling resistance for mixed particle solution of equal amount of kaolin and starch was minimum at 0.05 wt% particle concentration.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.76-86
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• 2010

This study investigated the effect of 2-butoxyethanol (BE) as a nonsolvent additive, relative humidity and air contact time on the structure formation of microfiltration membranes, permeation and morphology properties in phase inversion process. The membranes were prepared by using polyethersulfone (PES)/Dimethyl formamide (DMF)/p-toluenesulfonic acid (TSA)/Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP)/BE casting solution and water coagulant. Casting solutions containing various concentration of BE were exposed to a water vapor, under 60 and 80% of relative humidity for 40 and 90 sec, which would be absorbed on. The correlations between the membrane permeation properties and surface/inner structures of membrane were investigated. The characterization of membranes was carried out by a capillary flow porometer, a FE-SEM and a water permeation test apparatus. The surface structure of PES membranes was affected by the exposure time as well as the relative humidity strongly. Furthermore, the addition of BE helped control surface and inner structure at certain humidity and exposure time.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.43-51
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• 2018

Hollow fiber (HF) membranes are gaining wide interest over flat membranes due to their compaction and high area to surface volume ratio. This work addresses the fabrication of HF from polysulfone (PS) and polyethersulfone (PES) using N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP) as solvent in addition to other additives to achieve desired characteristics. The semi-pilot spinning system includes jacketed vessel, four spinneret block, coagulation and washing baths in addition to dryer and winder. Different parameters affecting dry-wet spinning phase inversion process were investigated. Dope compositions of PES, NMP and polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) of varying molecular weights as additive were addressed. Some critical parameters of importance were also investigated. Those include dope flow rate, air gap, coagulation & washing baths and drying temperatures. The measured dope viscosity was in the range from 1.7 to 36.5 Pa.s. Air gap distance was adjusted from 20 to 45 cm and coagulation bath temperature from 20 to $46^{\circ}C$. The HF membranes were characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM), atomic force microscope (AFM) and mechanical properties. Results indicated prevalence of finger like structure and average surface roughness from about 29 to 78.3 nm. Profile of stress strain characteristics revealed suitability of the fibers for downstream interventions for fabrication of thin film composite membrane. Different empirical correlations were formulated which enable deeper understanding of the interaction of the above mentioned variables. Data of pure water permeability (PWP) confirmed that the fabricated samples fall within the microfiltration (MF)-ultrafiltration (UF) range of membrane separation.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.178-190
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• 2012

Flat sheet membranes were prepared with polysulfone (PSF) by an immersion precipitation phase inversion method. Membranes were prepared with PSF/N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP)/polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP)/phosphoric acid casting solution and water coagulant. By using the successive process of the vapor-induced phase inversion (VIPS) followed by the nonsolvent-induced phase inversion (NIPS), the effect of phosphoric acid addition to casting solution on morphology and permeability of membrane was studied. The mean pore size, the porosity, and the water flux of membranes were increased by the addition of small amount of phosphoric acid. Furthermore, the morphology of the prepared membranes were changed from a dense sponge-like structure to highly enhanced asymmetric structure. PSF/NMP/PVP/phosphoric acid/2-butoxyethanol (BE) casting solution were prepared and cast the successive VIPS-NIPS process with same experimental condition. Due to the addition of BE to casting solution, the mean pore size and almost 0.1 ${\mu}m$ and the water flux increased about 10 to 12 $L/cm^2{\cdot}min{\cdot}bar$.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.170-183
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• 2021

Fouling has continued to be a problem that hinders the effectiveness of membrane properties. To solve this problem of reducing fouling effects on membrane surface properties, different and innovative types of membrane patterning has been proposed. This article reviews on the progress of patterned membranes and their separation process concerning the fouling effects of membranes. The types of separation processes that utilize the maximum effectiveness of the patterned membranes include nanofiltration (NF), reverse osmosis (RO), microfiltration (MF), ultrafiltration (UF), and pervaporation (PV). Using these separation processes have shown and prove to have a major effect on reducing fouling effects, and in addition, they also add beneficial properties to the patterned membranes. Each patterned membrane and their separation processes gave notable results in threshold towards flux, salt rejections, hydrophilicity and much more, but there are also some unsolved cases to be pointed out. In this review, the effects of patterned membrane for separation processes will be discussed.

• Clean Technology
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.179-185
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• 2001

Some companies are trying to develop the microfiltration membranes because most of them used as a prefilter is imported in Korea. However, they are faced with much difficulty such as characterization of membrane and controlling of pore size on development. In this study, a microfiltration membrane developed by a company was evaluated for applicability to use as a prefilter before reverse osmosis membrane process in production of ultra pure water. The optimum feed pressure for the raw water was obtained at 0.2 to 0.4 atm. At that time, turbidity of the treated water was 0.4 NTU and flux was 6,000 to $9,000L/m^2/hr$. In case of the conventionally treated water, it showed the very stable flux and turbidity at 90% of recovery rate. The chemical cleaning was helpful to reduce the TMP for treated water. The turbidity was improved from 0.3 NTU to 0.1 NTU after chemical cleaning.