• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.289-296
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to evaluate various pre-treatment methods and proprieties of water quality for wastewater reuse using reverse osmosis (RO) processes. Secondary effluents were sampled from wastewater treatment plants and lab scale pre-treatments and RO filtration test were conducted systematically. Specifically, different types of pre-treatments, such as coagulation, microfiltration and ultrafiltration, were employed to evaluate the removal efficiency of particle and organic matters which may affect the membrane fouling rate. RO process was later added to eliminate trace amounts of remaining organic matters and salt from the raw water for wastewater reclamation. The permeate through the RO process satisfied water quality regulations for industrial water uses. The experimental results showed that the initial fouling tendency differed not only by the feed water properties but also by the membrane characteristics. Membrane fouling was greater for the membranes with large surface roughness, regardless of the hydrophobicity and zeta potentials. Thus both careful consideration of pre-treatment options and proper selection of RO membrane are of paramount importance for an efficient operation of wastewater treatment.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.50-59
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• 2001

Influence of concentration polarization has been investigated on the vapor permeation of VOCs/$N_2$ mixture. Po]y(dimethylsiloxane)(PD,vIS) membrane which had a good affinit~, toward VOCs was emploj,'c'Cl in this study. The chlorinated hydmcarbons which were part of homologous series of chrolomelhane and chrolocthane were used as organic vapor. The vapor permeation experiments were calTied out at various VOCs feed concentrations. operating temperatures and feed flow rates. With decreasing feed flow rate. the membrane perfonnance, that is. penneation rate and selectivity were reduced in the permeation of VOCs/$N_2$ mixture. Especially the reducing of the membrane performance was founel to be more significant when the condensibility of voe was greater. voe content in the feed mixture was higher or operating temperature was lower. These observations were discussed in terms of the influence of con-centration polarizalion on the permeation of VOCSINl mixture through the PDMS membrane.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.161-168
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• 2017

Microfiltration (MF) and Ultrafiltration (UF) membrane processes capable of producing highly purified water have been extensively applied as a pretreatment process in the wastewater reuse field with the improvement of membrane properties and resistance, development of operating protocols, and improvement of technologies of backwashing and physicochemical cleaning, and improvement of scale and antifoulants. However, despite of the development of membrane production and process technologies, fouling still remains unresolved. This study confirmed that foulants such as polysaccharides, proteins and humic substances existed in final treated effluent (secondary effluent) by fluorescence excitation emission matrix (FEEM) and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis. In addition, when constructing ozone oxidation and coagulation processes as a hybrid process, the removal efficiency was 5.8%, 6.9%, 5.9%, and 28.2% higher than that of the single process using coagulation in turbidity, color, dissolved organic carbon (DOC), and UV254, respectively. The reversible and irreversible resistances in applying the hybrid process consisting of ozone oxidation and coagulation processes were lower than those in applying ozone oxidation and coagulation processes separately in UF membrane process. Therefore, it is considered possible to apply ozonation/coagulation as a pretreatment process for stable wastewater reuse by and then contributing to the reduction of fouling when calculating the optimal conditions for ozone oxidation and coagulation and then to applying them to membrane processes.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.19-27
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• 2022

A series of QPAE/TiO₂-x (x = 1, 4, 7 and 10 wt%) organic/inorganic composite membranes were prepared as electrolyte membranes for alkaline anion exchange membrane fuel cells by controlling the content of inorganic filler with quaternized poly(arylene ether) (QPAE) random copolymer. Among the prepared QPAE/TiO₂-x organic/inorganic composite membranes, the highest ionic conductivity was 26.6 mS cm^-1 at 30℃ in QPAE/TiO₂-7 composite membrane, which was improvement over the ionic conductivity value of 6.4 mS cm^-1 (at 30℃) of the pristine QPAE membrane. Furthermore, the water uptake, swelling ratio, ionic exchange capacity, and thermal property of QPAE/TiO₂-x composite membranes were improved compared to the pristine QPAE membrane. The results of these studies suggest that the fabricated QPAE/TiO₂-x composite membranes have good prospects for alkaline anion exchange membrane fuel cell applications.

• 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.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.42-49
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• 1998

By checking the variations of the raw water quality and MLSS, the effects of the membrane materials on permeable flux and quality of the treated water were investigated in this study. Due to the stability for high variations of MLSS, tubular type membranes were selected. Polysulfone group membranes and polyamide group membranes were tested. The crossflow operation mode was adapted, because membrane fouling problems could be easily controlled by adjusting the linear velocity. Due to the high concentration of the raw water, polyamide group membranes were originally expected to achieve two times higher permeable fluxes. However, difference was only approximately $20l/m^2{\cdot}h$ at $3kgf/cm^2$. It might be resulted from the high concentration of organic materials in the effluent of the RBC process. For the quality of the treated water, polyamide group membranes were slightly less effective. It might be resulted from the fact that polysulfone group membranes had more adsorptive capacities for the organic materials. The effects of temperature on the permeable flux were found to be significant. Despite of the irregular injection of raw water, the quality of the treated water was kept stable.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.195-201
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• 2007

A submerged flat-sheet membrane separation system integrated with PAC (powdered activated carbon) was used in this research in order to investigate the effects of PAC on the efficiencies of operation and treatment and to evaluate the performance of the system. The experiments were carried out under operating conditions of a filtration rate of 0.38 m/d, water temperature of $20-28^{\circ}C$, and PAC dose of 0 g/L (Run-A) and 20 g/L (Run-B). The influent concentrations of TOC (total organic carbon), $NH_4{^+}-N$ (ammonia nitrogen) and $UV_{254}$ (UV absorbance at 254 nm) were 2.48 mg/L, 1.4 mg/L and 2.53 1/m, respectively. TOC removal of 43.2 and 73.6%, ammonia nitrogen removal of 4.9 and 15.9%, and $UV_{254}$ removal of 20.6 and 31.6% were obtained for Run-A and Run-B, respectively. During an experimental period of 33 days, no change was found in TMP (Run-B), but the TMP in Run-A increased by 5 kPa after 29 days. This research showed that the filtrate quality and the performance efficiency were enhanced when PAC was introduced into the filtration system.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.981-987
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• 2011

Biologically treated water contains a large quantity of organic matters and microorganisms which can cause various problems to membrane. The membrane fouling occurred by these reasons is hard to control by single physical cleaning. This study analyzes the efficiency of aeration with chemical backwashing and foulants removal during chemical backwashing. The cleaning efficiency improves when the chemical concentration is high and the contact time of chemical is long. Chemical backwashing with aeration shows exceptional cleaning efficiency which leads the physical cleaning is required during chemical backwashing since it forms flow inside the membrane submerged tank. From the foulants removal analysis, the particles such as turbidity and TOC removal rate increase when the aeration is applied. Dissolved matter of DOC and UV254 removal is dependent on higher chemical concentration. According to FTIR analysis, one of major foulants, the polysaccharide is controlled by the chemical backwashing with aeration condition.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.399-405
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• 2011

In a desalination technology using RO membranes, chemical cleaning makes damage for membrane surface and membrane life be shortened. In this research cleaning technology using direct osmosis (DO) was introduced to apply it under the condition of high pH and high concentration of feed. When the high concentration of feed is injected to the concentrate side after release of operating pressure, then backward flow occurred from treated water toward concentrated for osmotic pressure. This flow reduces fouling on the membrane surface. Namely, flux of DO was monitored under pH 3, 5, 10 and 12 conditions at feed concentrations of NaCl 40,000 mg/L, 120,000 mg/L and 160,000 mg/L. As a result, DO flux in pH 12 increased about 21% than pH 3. DO cleaning was performed under the concentrate NaCl 160,000 mg/L of pH 12 during 20 minutes. Three kinds of synthetic feed water were used as concentrates. They consisted of organic, inorganic and seawater; chemicals of SiO2 (200 mg/L), humic acid (50 mg/L) sodium alginate (50 mg/L) and seawater. As a result, fluxes were recovered to 17% in organic fouling, 15% in inorganic fouling and 14% of seawater fouling after cleaning using DO under the condition of concentrate NaCl 160,000 mg/L of pH 12.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.114-125
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• 1999

Dense polymer membranes were made from vanous silicone polymers such as poly(1-trimethylsilyl-1-propyneHPTMSP), poly(dimethylsiloxaneHPDMS), PTMSP- g-PDMS. These membranes were evaluated in terms of the removal of chlorinated organic hydrocarbons such as chloroform, trichloroethylene(TCE), perchloroethylene(PCE) from water by pervaporation. It was possible for membranes used in this study to remove PCE selectively which is dissolved small quantity in water among other separable solutes. PTMSP membranes exhibited a remarkable decay in permeability with time because of the free volume decreases. However, PTMSP-g-PDMS membrane underwent no physical aging and showed the stable flux behavior. From the results of the contact angle measurement, polymeric membranes used in this study showed affinity with solutes for separation and no affinity with water. The relative swelling degree was directly related to the selectivity, while it has no influence on the flux.