• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.335-342
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• 2018

Micelle-Enhanced Ultrafiltration (MEUF) is a membrane separation processes that improving ultrafiltration process with the formation of micelles of the surface active agents. Surface active agents are widely used to improve membrane processes due to the ability to trap organic compounds and metals in the treatment of industrial waste water. In this study, surface active agents are used to improve micelle-enhanced ultrafiltration (MEUF) to reduce chemical oxygen demand (COD), total dissolved solid (TDS), turbidity and clogging the membrane in dairy wastewater treatment. Three important operational factors (anionic surface active agent concentration, pressure and pH) and these interactions were investigated by using response surface methodology (RSM) and Box-Behnken design. Results show that due to the concentration polarization layer and increase the number of Micelles; the anionic surface active agent concentration has a negative effect on the flux and has a positive effect on the elimination of contamination indices. pH, and the pressure have the greatest effect on flux. On the other hand, it could be stated that these percentages of separation are in the percentages range of Nano-filtration (NF). While MEUF process has higher flux than NF process. The results have been achieved at lower pressure while NF process needs high pressure, thus making MEUF is the replacement for the NF process.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.30 no.12
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• pp.1273-1280
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• 2008

This study sought to establish the optimum operating condition for the recovery of caustic (NaOH) solution from mercerization in textile process. As main factors, the silt density index (SDI) evaluation of ceramic membrane for the application of nanofiltration/reverse osmosis (NF/RO) membrane, the recovery yield measurement of caustic solution for the application of polymeric membrane, the optimum condition of chemical cleaning for the membrane regeneration, the optimum removal condition of total organic carbon (TOC), turbidity, color, and the permeate flux of ceramic membrane/polymeric membrane combined process were investigated. As results, ceramic ultrafiltration (UF) in the first step and nanofiltration (NF) in the second step were found to be suitable for the removal of total suspended solid (TSS), residual organics, turbidity including color, and the recovery of caustic solution from caustic wastewater stream in mercerization process. When only the ceramic UF membrane was used, the rejection efficiency of both of TSS and turbidity was more than 99.0%, and the color and TOC were rejected about 74.7% and 49.2%, respectively. Meanwhile, the combined membrane precess of UF and NF membranes showed even more efficient removal abilities and thus more than 99.9% of TSS and turbidity, 87.7% of color, and 78.2% of TOC were removed. In particular, 91.3% of NaOH was successfully recovered with 83.7% of total volume in the combined membrane process. With this regard, a clean caustic solution was obtained in a high purity, which can be reused for mercerization process, expecting to offer economical benefits.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.149-157
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• 2011

Nanofiltration (NF) experiments were conducted to investigate fouling of Al-hydroxide precipitate and the influence of organic compound, inorganic compound, and their combination, i.e., multiple foulants. $CaCl_2$ and $MgSO_4$ were employed as surrogates of inorganic compounds while humic acid was used as surrogate of organic compound. The flux attained from NF experiments was fitted with the mathematical fouling model to evaluate the potential fouling mechanisms. Al-hydroxide fouling with a cake formation mechanism had little effect on the NF membrane fouling regardless of the Al concentration. The NF fouling by Al-hydroxide precipitate was deteriorated in presence of inorganic matter. The effect of Mg was more critical in increasing the fouling than Ca. This is because the Mg ions enhanced the resistances of the cake layer accumulated by the Al-hydroxide precipitate on the membrane surfaces. However, the fouling with Mg was dramatically mitigated by adding humic acid. It is interesting to observe that the removal of the conductivity was enhanced to 61.2% in presence of Mg and humic acid from 30.9% with Al-hydroxide alone. The influence of dissolved matter (i.e., colloids) was more negative than particulate matter on the NF fouling for Al-hydroxide precipitate in presence of inorganic and organic matter.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.926-932
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• 2006

A series of bench-scale membrane filtration experiments were performed to systematically investigate the removal mechanisms of reverse osmosis (RO) and nanofiltration (NF) membranes for BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylene, xylene), trichloroethylene (TCE) and tetrachloroethylene (PCE). The molecular weight of these organic compounds ranged from 78 to 166 dalton. The rejection of organic compounds by RO/NF membranes varied significantly from 59.6 to 99.2% depending on solute and membrane types. Specifically, experimental results demonstrated that the removal efficiency of RO/NF membranes increased as solute molecular characteristics such as W/L (molecular width/length) ${\times}$ $M_W$ (molecular weight) and octanol-water partition coefficient increased. This observation suggested that the rejection of small organic compounds by RO/NF membranes was determined by the combined effect of physical (molecular size and shape) and chemical (hydrophobicity) properties.

• Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering
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• v.35 no.12
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• pp.2487-2495
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• 2018

Inspired by the specific amino acid sequence Asn-Pro-Ala (NPA) of water channel aquaporins (AQPs), we fabricated polyamide (PA) nanofiltration (NF) membranes by introducing reduced glutathione (GSH) in interfacial polymerization (IP) method. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), X-ray photoelectron spectrometry (XPS), scanning electron microscope (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), zeta potential and static water contact angle measurement were employed to characterize the chemical composition, morphology, electronegativity and hydrophilicity of the NF membranes. The water flux of GSH/PIP-TMC NF membrane reached $32.00L\;m^{-2}h^{-1}$ at 0.2 MPa, which was approximately twice than that of pristine PIP-TMC NF membrane when the ratio of GHS to piperazidine (PIP) was 40% during IP process. More water channels were built as GSH was embedded into PA layer. The fabricated NF membranes also took on potent rejection for dyes and $Na_2SO_4$. This study presents a simple and facile method to simulate water channels-based biological materials which may find potential application in water treatment.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.224-230
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• 2000

Membrane processes are capable of removing much materials from water. The removal or rejection characteristics of a membrane is usually depend upon the nominal pore size or MWCO(molecular weight cut off). A membrane with a smaller nominal pore size or MWCO should be capable of removing smaller contaminants from water. A series of experiments was performed to investigate the separation characteristics of membrane processes which consisted of microfiltration(MF) and nanofiltration(NF). To evaluate removal efficiencies of some pollutants such as the consumption of $KMnO_4$, THMFP, NH3-N, Fe, Mn, and pesticides, source water sampled from the Kum river was treated by the those membrane processes. Also, the results of experiments were compared with those of conventional water treatment processes. By two types of the membrane process, total removal efficiency of $KMnO_4$ consumed, THMEP, and $NH_3-N$ were 91.0%, 84.3%, and 85.5%, respectively and those processes were efficient in pesticides removal as well. Most of the effluents satisfied the Korean standard of drinking water quality continuously in the experimental periods. However, NF was needed for producing the safe drinking water in case of treating the raw water contaminated with Mn since removal efficiency of MF was not high enough. On the basis of the experimental results, it was suggested that NF could be applied to remove not only $NH_3-N$ but THMFP even without pre-chlorination.

• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
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• 2004.11a
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• pp.253-254
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• 2004

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.303-312
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• 2020

This study aims to investigate at a laboratory scale fluorides removal from an industrial wastewater having excessive F^- concentration through a hybrid process combining neutralization and membrane separation. For the membrane separation operation, both Reverse Osmosis (RO) and Nanofiltration (NF) were investigated and confronted. The optimized neutralization step with hydrated lime allowed reaching fluoride removal rates of 99.1± 0.4 %. To simulate continuous process, consecutive batch treatments with full recirculation of membrane process brines were conducted. Despite the relatively high super saturations with respect to CaF₂, no membrane cloaking was observed. The RO polishing treatment allowed decreasing the permeate fluoride concentration to 0.9± 0.3 mg/L with a fluoride rejection rate of 93± 2% at the optimal transmembrane pressure of around 100 psi. When NF membrane was used to treat neutralization filtrate, the permeate fluoride concentration dropped to 1.1± 0.4 mg/L with a fluoride rejection rate of 88± 5% at the optimal pressure of around 80 psi. Thus, with respect to RO, NF allowed roughly 20% decrease of the driving pressure at the expense of only 5% drop of rejection rate. Both NF and RO permeates at optimal operating transmembrane pressures respect environmental regulations for reject streams discharge into the environment.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.473-480
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• 2020

High-pressure membrane system like nanofiltration(NF) and reverse osmosis(RO) was investigated as a part of water treatment processes to produce high quality potable water with low organic matter concentration through membrane module tests and design simulation. River water and sand filtration permeate in Busan D water treatment plant were selected as feed water, and NE4040-90 and RE4040-Fen(Toray Chemical Korea) were used as NF and RO membranes, respectively. Total organic carbon(TOC) concentrations of NF and RO permeates were mostly below 0.5 mg/l and the average TOC removal rates of NF and RO membranes were 93.99% and 94.28%, respectively, which means NF used in this study is competitive with RO in terms of organic matter removal ability. Different from ions rejection tendency, the TOC removal rate increases at higher recovery rates, which is because the portion of higher molecular weight materials in the concentrated raw water with increasing recovery rate increases. Discharge of NF/RO concentrates to rivers may not be acceptable because the increased TDS concentration of the concentrates can harm the river eco-system. Thus, the idea of using NF/RO concentrate as the raw water for industrial water production was introduced. The design simulation results with feed water and membranes used in this work reveal that the raw water guideline can be satisfied if the recovery rate of NF/RO system is designed below 80%.

• Korean Membrane Journal
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.56-59
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• 2000

The surface charge properties of a polymeric NF and a ceramic UF membranes were characterized in terms of zeta potential and acidity. Both the negative zeta potential and acidity values increased as pH increases due to ionizable acidic functional groups. Increased ionic strength reduced the acidity of the negatively-charged membrane surface as anticipated. Through these results, it can be envisioned are used to reject solutes with ionizable functional groups. Fouling of the negatively-charged membrane with natural organic matter (NOM) having a negative charge density was also investigated with respect to the surface charge. The surface charge of the NF membrane increased negatively when greater NOM adsorption onto the membrane surface occured.