• Membrane Journal
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.39-47
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• 1997

The self-designed membrane system was tested to examine the performance of the hollow fiber type polysulfone ultrafiltration(UF) membrane for the treatment of pure water(the 3rd treated water). The molecular weight cut-off's (MWCO) of the membranes used in this study were 5, 000 and 10, 000, respectively. The recovery rate, the ratio of permeate flow rate to the feed flow rate, increased as the temperature rose. The values of MWCO obtained in this study, using 2, 000 ppm polyethylene glycol and dextran solutions with various molecular weight, showed higher values than those suggested by SKI. Based on the results of the primary experiments, the water of the Gongji-stream, in which water quality is deteriorated by the inflow of domestic wastewater, was selected for the UF membrane test. Biological oxygen demand(BOD), total solids, and turbidity of the treated water had much lower values than those of the source water. Therefore, this study confirmed the possibility of the domestic water treatment using the hollow fiber type UF membrane.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.17-21
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• 2018

A series of laboratory scale experiments were performed to investigate the feasibility of membrane separation technology for natural rubber (NR) wastewater treatment and reuse. Three types of spiral wound membranes were employed in the cross-flow experiments. The NR wastewater pretreated by sand filtration and cartridge filtration was forced to pass through the ultrafiltration (UF), nanofiltration (NF) and reverse osmosis (RO) membranes successively. The UF retentate, which containing abundant proteins, can be used to produce fertilizer, while the NF retentate is rich in quebrachitol and can be used to extract quebrachitol. The permeate produced by the RO module was reused in the NR processing. Furthermore, about 0.1wt% quebrachitol was extracted from the NR wastewater. Besides, the effluent quality treated by the membrane processes was much better than that of the biological treatment. Especially for total dissolved solids (TDS) and total phosphorus (T-P), the removal efficiency improved 53.11% and 49.83% respectively. In addition, the removal efficiencies of biological oxygen demand (BOD) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) exceeded 99%. The total nitrogen (T-N) and ammonia nitrogen (NH4-N) had approximately similar removal efficiency (93%). It was also found that there was a significant decrease in the T-P concentration in the effluent, the T-P was reduced from 200 mg/L to 0.34 mg/L. Generally, it was considered to be a challenging problem to solve for the biological processes. In brief, highly resource utilization and zero discharge was obtained by membrane separation system in the NR wastewater treatment.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.217-221
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• 2012

As a part of basic research to improve screen quality, which deteriorates when strain occurs within optical sheets in LCD modules for laptop computers, a measurement system is needed to analyze the influence of heat and moisture, which are the main factors causing the strain. It is assumed that the existence of an air gap less of than 0.5 mm inside the LCD module causes humid air from outside to permeate through the module. To investigate this phenomenon, in this study a thin printed circuit board (PCB) of compact sensors that measure temperature and humidity is inserted into LCD modules, and thus, the changes in temperature and humidity can be analyzed in real time. The results can be used as basic data for simulation of the deformation behavior and structural design of LCD modules in the future.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2006

In this study, five commercially available fouling resistant low-pressure RO membranes were investigated for the treatment of seasonally brackish surface water with high organic content (${\approx}24mg/L$). The membranes investigated are LFC-1 (Hydranautics), X20 (Trisep), BW30FR1 (FilmTec), SG (Osmonics), and BE-FR (Saehan). The results of surface characterization revealed that each of these membranes has one or two unique surface characteristics to minimize the adherence of the fouling materials to the membrane. Specifically, the LFC1 membrane features a neutral or low negative surface to minimize electrostatic interactions with charged foulants. The X20, on the other hand, shows a highly negatively charged surface, and thus, is expected to perform well with feed waters containing negatively charged organics and colloids. The BW30FR1 exhibits a relatively neutral and hydrophilic surface, which could be beneficial for lessening organic and/or biofouling. The SG membrane has a smooth surface that makes it quite resistant to fouling, particularly for colloidal deposition. Lastly, BE-FR membrane demonstrated a medium surface charge and a slightly higher hydrophobicity. In the pilot study, all of the four membranes experienced a gradual increase in MTC (water mass transfer coefficient or specific flux) over time, indicating no fouling occurred during the pilot study. The deterioration of permeate water quality such as TDS was also observed over time, suggesting that the integrity of the membranes was compromised by the monochloramine used for biofouling control.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.279-284
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• 2018

Membrane biofouling is a critical operational problem that hinders the rapid commercialization of MBRs. Quorum quenching (QQ) has been investigated widely to control membrane biofouling and is accepted as a promising anti-fouling strategy. Various QQ strategies based on bacterial and enzymatic agents have been identified and applied successfully. Whereas, this study aimed to compare indigenously isolated QQ strain i.e., Enterobacter cloaca with well reported Rhodococcus sp. BH4. Both bacterial species were immobilized in polymeric beads and introduced to two different MBRs keeping the overall beads to volume ratio as 1%. Efficiencies of these strains were monitored in terms of prolonging the membrane filtration cycle of MBR, release of extra-cellular polymeric substances, membrane resistivity measurements and mineralization of signal molecules and permeate quality. Indigenous strain (Enterobacter cloaca) was added to $QQ-MBR_E$ while Rhodococcus sp. BH4 was introduced to $QQ-MBR_R$. QQ bacterial embedded beads showed enhanced filtration cycles up to 1.4 and 2.3 times for $QQ-MBR_E$ and $QQ-MBR_R$ respectively as compared to control MBR (C-MBR). Soluble EPS concentration of 52 mg/L was observed in C-MBR while significantly lower EPS concentration of 20 and 10 mg/L was witnessed in $QQ-MBR_E$ and $QQ-MBR_R$, respectively. Therefore, substantial reduction in biofouling showed the effectiveness of indigenous strain.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.66-73
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• 2022

In this study, a method for stabilizing treated water was conducted while maintaining high flux using a metal flat membrane module made of stainless steel. This module had a pore size of 13 ㎛, so it was possible to operate at a high flux from 60 LMH to 100 LMH. However, although SS leaked about 30~50 ppm during initial operation, aggregation was possible because SS acted as aggregation nucleus. While polymer membrane permeate does not have aggregation nucleus, so coagulation is possible but not flocculation. Typically clay or bentonite, which is used as aggregation nucleus, is additionally administered. In this study, the total phosphorus treatment and the quality of the treated water were to promote stability because flocculation was achieved only with SS leakage without the need for such a aggregation nucleus. Finally, the feasibility of operating a metal membrane filter capable of high flux in stable treated water to be applied to the MBR system.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.201-211
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• 2011

The effects of humic acid (HA), photo-oxidation and adsorption were investigated in hybrid process of ceramic ultrafiltration and photocatalyst for drinking water treatment. UF, photocatalyst, and UV radiation processes were investigated in viewpoints of membrane fouling resistance $(R_f)$, permeate flux (J), and total penneate volume $(V_{\Upsilon})$ at 2 and 4 mg/L of HA respectively. As decreasing HA, $R_f$ decreased dramatically and J increased, and finally $V_{\Upsilon}$ was the highest at 2 mg/L HA. Average treatment efficiencies of turbidity decreased as increasing HA, but treatment efficiency of HA was the highest at 4 mg/L HA. It was because most of HA was removed by membrane and some HA passing through the membrane was adsorbed or photo-oxidized by photocatalyst at low HA, and therefore treated water quality was almost same at 2 and 4 mg/L HA, but feed water quality was higher at 4 mg/L. At effect experiment of photo-oxidation and adsorption, J of UF + $TiO_2$ + UV process was maintained at the highest, and ultimately $(V_{\Upsilon})$ after 180 minutes' operation was the highest. As results of comparing the treatment efficiencies of turbidity and HA, photocatalyst adsorption had more important role than photo-oxidation when HA increased from 2 to 4 mg/L.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.367-373
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• 2017

Pressurized membrane module systems, including hollow fiber type of Microfiltration (MF) and Ultrafiltration (UF) membranes are being increasingly used in drinking water treatment due to their high removal efficiency of pathogen. However, when fibers are damaged in pressurized membrane system, the pathogen will be able to penetrate the membrane. Therefore, it is essential to guarantee the regulatory requirements for water quality by an effective on-line or off-line condition integrity monitoring methods. Recently, pressure decay test (PDT) which is one of membrane integrity tests has been reflected to drinking water treatment plants using pressurized membrane module. In this paper, three different method were used to perform PDT and three different sensitivity values were analyzed through experiments. Three types of direct integrity test methods were applied to pressure feed side, filtrate side and bidirectional pressure decay test. The results of these experiments show that the sensitivity was increasing when the volume of pressurized gas was decreasing. The sensitivity is inversely proportional to the gas volume. Furthermore, it is desirable to increase pressure difference between feed side and permeate side in order to achieve higher sensitivity in the PDT by membrane damage.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.45 no.5
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• pp.500-505
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• 2007

The objectives of this research were to (1) identify the membrane fouling potential due to different fractions of NOM (2) correlate the physicochemical properties of NOM and membranes with the adsorption of humic substances on membrane (4) find out the effect of membrane physical and chemical washing according to membrane material. The static adsorption test and adsorption test showed that hydrophobic organics adsorbed much more quickly than hydrophilic organics. In case of the effect of membrane properties on the adsorption of organic fractions, the adsorption rate ratio(a) of hydrophobic membrane (0.016, 0.077) was greater than that of hydrophilic membrane (0.010, 0.033) regardless of the kind of organic fractions. This suggests that the UF membrane fouling were occurred mainly by internal pore size decreasing due to adsorption of organic into pore surface for hydrophobic membrane, and by sieving of organics and forming a gel layer on the membrane surface for hydrophilic membrane. In conclusion, the decrease in the pore volume, which was caused by the organic adsorption into the internal pore, was greater with the hydrophobic membrane than with the hydrophilic membrane. In case of the effect of membrane properties on permeate flux, the rate of flux decline for the hydrophobic membrane was significantly greater than that for the hydrophilic membrane.

• 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.