• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.437-446
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• 2019

Reverse osmosis seawater desalination facilities can extend the cleaning cycle and replacement time of the reverse osmosis membrane by pretreatment process. Selection of pretreatment process depends on water quality. It was attempted in this study to select approriate pretreatment process for the Masan bay, which was high in particles and organic content. For this purpose, performances of pretreatment processes such as filter adsorber (FA), pore controllable fiber (PCF), and ultrafiltration (UF) were compared based on the silt density index (SDI). The SDI value of the filtrate should be less than 3. The study results showed that UF can produce the filtrate quality satisfying the requirement. However, the transmembrane pressure (TMP) of UF increased quickly, reaching 0.6 bar within 4 days. In order to secure stable operation, FA and PCF were combined with UF. The study results showed that combination of PCF and UF was able to extend the filtration duration (more than 2 months) until to reach TMP of 0.6 bar.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.19-25
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• 2009

In this study, total bacteria, enteric members of the $\gamma$-proteobacteria, and microbial communities in seawater were analyzed as indirect indicators for quantifying biofouling. Biomass in seawater can significantly affect feed water pretreatment and membrane biofouling of reverse osmosis desalination processes. The purpose of this paper is to investigate microbiological quantity and quality of seawater at the potential intake of a desalination plant. For this analysis, the total direct cell count (TDC) using 4'-6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI)-staining and DNA-based real-time PCR were used to quantify the total bacteria and relative content of enteric members of $\gamma$-proteobacteria in seawater, respectively. In addition, microbial communities were examined using 16S rRNA gene cloning and bacterial isolation to identify the most abundant bacteria for a further biofouling study. The experimental results of this study identified about $10^6$ cells/mL of (total) bacteria, $10^5$ 16S rRNA gene copies/mL of enteric $\gamma$-proteobacteria, and the presence of more than 20 groups of bacteria.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.97-106
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• 2018

In this study, the effect of chemically enhanced backwash(CEB) coping with algal(Heterosigma Akashiwo) inflow was evaluated in the seawater desalination pretreatment process using ceramic membrane. In order to confirm the possibility of long-term filtration operation, the recovery rate of transmembrane pressure(TMP) due to the CEB using NaOCl was examined. When the membrane flow rate was 83.3 LMH, the TMP was maintained within 200 kPa for 84 hours in seawater influent. As the algal counts of 30,000 cell/mL were injected into the influent of seawater, however, the TMP rapidly increased and exceed maximum value. Membrane fouling caused by the algae was very poorly recovered by usual physical backwash. The CEB was performed for 30 min(3 min circulation / 27 min immersion) with 300 mg/L of NaOCl. As a result of the CEB application, it was possible to maintain a stable operating of filtration during 10 days and the average recovery rate of TMP by the CEB was 98.1%. It has been confirmed that the CEB using NaOCl is very effective in removal of membrane fouling by algae, resulted in stable membrane filtration for the long-term operation.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.200-205
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• 2013

Pretreatment process is the critical step of RO (Reverse Osmosis) membrane desalination plant in order to prevent RO membrane fouling. The pretreatment as a key component of RO process must be designed to produce a constant and high quality RO feedwater which has low silt density index (SDI). This experiment was conducted to assess parameters affecting SDI value, such as pH, seawater turbidity, temperature, and coagulant dose. The experimental results indicated that the source seawater turbidity did cause little effects on SDI values of filtered water. The 0.45 um hydrophilic membrane was more appropriate than the hydrophobic membrane for measuring SDI. The SDI value was increased with decreasing pH under the condition of below pH 7.0. In addition, the water temperature significantly affected the SDI values, showing higher SDI value with lower water temperature.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.55-61
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• 2016

Organic fouling observed in submerged membrane filtration as a pretreatment for seawater desalination increases energy consumption for membrane operation because of requiring frequent chemical cleaning and membrane replacement. In membrane pretreatment for seawater facing with algae blooms, membrane fouling was observed in submerged microfiltration using sodium alginate model compound which is one of the main components of extracellular polymeric substances. Without aeration, aglinate fouling increased with its concentration while aeration reduced the alginate fouling effectively regardless of its concentration tested. In the absence of aeration, alingate fouling tended to be decreased with increasing calcium concentration. However, this effectiveness was reduced by increasing sodium chloride concentration. At high concentration of sodium chloride and calcium similar to the seawater conditions, aeration reduced initial fouling. However, as time progressed, the effect of increased airflow rate on fouling reduction was not significant, implying that optimum airflow rate to control alginate fouling in submerged microfiltration can exist.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.39 no.9
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• pp.542-547
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• 2017

This paper was to analyze the membrane characterization of hydrophilicity, surface morphology and membrane chemical anlysis of three commercial microfiltration/ultrafiltration membranes, and evaluate the filtration performance of a seawater to assess the availability for pretreatment of desalination process. From the results of contact angle, Mem-3, fabricated with polyacrylonitrile, was highly hydrophilic. It find out that Mem-3 has more anti-biofouling property. In Field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM), Mem-1 (polyethylene) and Mem-2 (Polyvinylidenefluoride) showed the sponge-like shape and Mem-3 showed finger-like shape. Membrane chemical analysis by energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS) presented that Mem-2 was mostly fluoride and Mem-3 had s high ratio of N (32.47%) due to the nitrile group. The permeation flowrate per time on suction pressures using deionized water (D.I. water) tends that permeation rate of Mem-3 more increased when the pressure was increased compared to other membranes. From the results of turbidity and total suspended solids (TSS) removal, turbidity of permeate was 0.191 NTU to 0.406 NTU and TSS was 2.2 mg/L to 3.0 mg/L in all membranes, indicating that it was not suitable for the pretreatment of seawater desalination by short-term experiments.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.215-222
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• 2009

This study compares the performance of the filters with various media in pretreatment of seawater desalination by reverse osmosis. For this purpose, Masan bay seawater is used as raw water. The filter performance is evaluated by the filtrate quality and the head loss development. Five media is selected in this study: anthracite, $Filtralite^{(R)}$, sand, Pumice, $AFM^{(R)}$. These media are used in combination for dual media filter and alone for mono media filter. The comparison results show that NC0.8-1.6 is the best $Filtralite^{(R)}$. The dual media filter of NC0.8-1.6 and sand outperformed other filters in particle removal. The dual media filter of anthracite and sand showed good performance in organic removal. The mono media filter of Pumice produced the similar filtrate quality as the mono media filter of sand although the effective size of Pumice is considerably greater than that of sand. Due to big size, head loss development is maintained slow in the filtration of Pumice.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.251-257
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• 2014

This research is focused on coagulation and sand filtration process as a pretreatment of RO seawater desalination. RO systems require sufficient and reliable pretreatment process to produce superior quality of RO feedwater that can mitigate RO membrane fouling. This experiment was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of coagulation and filtration process under various experimental conditions including different coagulant dose, flocculation mixing intensity and time, turbidity, and filtration rate. The experimental results showed that the optimum pretreatment conditions resulting in lower SDI value suitable for RO feedwater were coagulation pH 6.5, raw water turbidity greater than 4 NTU, and media bed depth greater than 550 mm. However, flocculation mixing intensity, coagulant dose, and filtration rate relatively affected little on the filtration efficiency.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.182-191
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• 2002

Polyamide reverse osmosis (RO) membrane with thin film composite structure was commercialized for seawater desalination process. Recently, it has been reported that some RO processes for high pressure and recovery leads to reducing in energy cost and pretreatment scale compared with earlier process. The development of energy recovery, pumping device and RO elements with high pressure and rejection made high pressure and recovery process possible. In this study, permeation properties of commercialized seawater RO membrane were investigated under the condition of high pressure and recovery. In the RO sheet membrane test 3.5% NaCl of synthetic seawater was used. The synthetic seawater contained only sodium chloride. In the RO module test, natural seawater was used at Happo Bay, Masan city. As the results, RO membrane with high durability of pressure was better than that with high rejection of seawater for high pressure and recovery process. Seawater rejection of high concentrate tends to be improved by high pressure operation.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.917-922
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• 2011

Adsorption characteristics of boron on activated carbon was investigated in order to evaluate the use of activated carbon for the removal of boron in desalination processes using SWRO. Boron was removed ranging from 54~60% when the concentration of activated carbon was 1,000 mg/L in 6 hours under the initial boron concentration of 5 mg/L. The removal of boron increased by 20~22% with the increase of pH from 5 to 9. Organic matter had adverse effect on the adsorption of boron on activated carbon. Boron removal decreased by 10-12% when EDTA was added at 1 mg/L under 5 mg/L of boron and 200mg/L of activated carbon. In this results, activated carbon would be a good candidate for a pretreatment of desalination processes by SWRO from the view of mitigating the feed boron concentration to RO and meeting the effluent boron concentration without post-treatment after RO.