• Membrane Journal
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.339-347
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• 2019

Forward osmosis (FO) is operated at a lower pressure than reverse osmosis (RO), which has great advantages in terms of fouling control, maintenance, membrane cleaning, and potential energy reduction. In particular, since the membrane fouling layer of the forward osmosis process has a relatively loose and dispersed property, it is possible to control the membrane fouling by physical cleaning, unlike the reverse osmosis process. However, existing studies do not apply the proper cleaning flow rate for forward osmosis physical cleaning, and thus there is a limit that the optimal operation can not be performed. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the justification of proper flow rate that can show high efficiency cleaning with economical energy amount. The membrane fouling experiments of the forward osmosis process were maintained at a circulating flow rate of 8.54 cm/s and the recovery rates were compared with the three cleaning flow rates. As a result of this experiment, it was confirmed that the 2 × speed cleaning showed the same efficiency as the water permeability recovery rate of the 3 × speed cleaning, and it was confirmed that the 2 × speed cleaning was an appropriate flow rate with high cleaning efficiency and economical SEC.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.141-147
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• 2010

The objective of this study was to assess the biofouling characteristics of the Bacillus biofilm formed on reverse osmosis (RO) membranes. For the study, a sporogenic Bacillus sp. was isolated from the seawater intake to a RO process, with two distinct sets of experiments performed to grow the Bacillus biofilm on the RO membrane using a lab-scale crossflow membrane test unit. Two operational feds were used, 9 L sterile-filtered seawater and 109 Bacillus cells, with flow rates of 1 L/min, and a constant 800 psi-pressure and pH 7.6. From the results, the membrane with more fouling, in which the observed permeate flux decreased to 33% of its initial value, showed about 10 and 100 times greater extracellular polymeric substances and spoOA genes expressions, respectively, than the those of the less fouled membrane (flux declined to 20% of its initial value). Interestingly; however, the number of culturable Bacillus sp. in the more fouled membrane was about 10 times less than that of the less fouled membrane. This indicated that while the number of Bacillus had less relevance with respect to the extent of biofouling, the activation of the genes of interest, which is initiative of biofilm development, had a more positive effect on biofouling than the mass of an individual Bacillus bacterium.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Systems Engineering
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.73-87
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• 2016

Combining power generation and water production by desalination is economically advantageous. Most desalination projects use fossil fuels as an energy source, and thus contribute to increased levels of greenhouse gases. Environmental concerns have spurred researchers to find new sources of energy for desalination plants. The coupling of nuclear power production with desalination is one of the best options to achieve growth with lower environmental impact. In this paper, we will per-form a sensitivity study of coupling nuclear power to various combinations of desalination technology: {1} thermal (MSF [Multi-Stage Flashing], MED [Multi-Effect Distillation], and MED-TVC [Multi-Effect Distillation with Thermal Vapour Compression]); {2} membrane RO [Reverse Osmosis]; and {3} hybrid (MSF-RO [Multi-Stage Flashing & Reverse Osmosis] and MED-RO [Multi-Effect Distillation & Reverse Osmosis]). The Korean designed reactor plant, the APR1400 will be modeled as the energy production facility. The economical evaluation will then be executed using the computer program DEEP (Desalination Economic Evaluation Program) as developed by the IAEA. The program has capabilities to model several types of nuclear and fossil power plants, nuclear and fossil heat sources, and thermal distillation and membrane desalination technologies. The output of DEEP includes levelized water and power costs, breakdowns of cost components, energy consumption, and net saleable power for any selected option. In this study, we will examine the APR1400 coupled with a desalination power plant in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) as a prototypical example. The KSA currently has approximately 20% of the installed worldwide capacity for seawater desalination. Utilities such as power and water are constructed and run by the government. Per state practice, economic evaluation for these utilities do not consider or apply interest or carrying cost. Therefore, in this paper the evaluation results will be based on two scenarios. The first one assumes the water utility is under direct government control and in this case the interest and discount rate will be set to zero. The second scenario will assume that the water utility is controlled by a private enterprise and in this case we will consider different values of interest and discount rates (4%, 8%, & 12%).

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.285-291
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• 2011

Membrane fouling is an unavoidable phenomenon and major obstacle in the economic and efficient operation under sea water reverse osmosis (SWRO). When fouling occurs on the membrane surface, the permeate quantity and quality decrease, the trans-membrane pressure (TMP) and operation costs increase, and the membrane may be damaged. Therefore, chemical cleaning process is important to prevent permeate flow from decreasing in RO membrane filtration process. This study focused on proper chemical cleaning condition for Shuaibah RO plant in Saudi Arabia. Several chemical agents were used for chemical cleaning at different contact time and concentrations of chemicals. Also autopsy analysis was performed using LOI, FT-IR, FEEM, SEM and EDX for assessment of fouling. Specially, FEEM analysis method was thought as analyzing and evaluating tool available for selection of the first applied chemical cleaning dose to predict potential organic fouling. Also, cleaning time should be considered by the condition of RO membrane process since the cleaning time depends on the membrane fouling rate. If the fouling exceeds chemical cleaning guideline, to perfectly remove the fouling, certainly, the chemical cleaning is increased with membrane fouling rate influenced by raw water properties, pre-treatment condition and the point of the chemical cleaning operation time. Also choice of cleaning chemicals applied firstly is important.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.314-322
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• 2019

A worsened drought in Chungnam province of Korea due to climate change and increasing water demand at Daesan industrial complex have motivated the 100,000 ㎥/d seawater desalination project. In this study, therefore, the comprehensive analysis of parameters affecting the reverse osmosis (RO) performance was conducted. Under the various conditions of feedwater salinity and temperature in Daesan, energy consumption was calculated as 2.39 ± 0.13 kWh/㎥. The decrease in membrane flux and recovery rate positively impacted annual operation cost. The average total dissolved solids (TDS) of the permeate and energy consumption with highly permeable membrane according to the membrane manufacturer were 3.84 mg/L and 2.22 ± 0.13 kWh/㎥, respectively. In addition, energy saving up to 0.29 kWh/㎥ or cost reduction of membrane module up to 15.6% is expected by changing the RO configuration from full two pass to partial or split partial two pass.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.56 no.5
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• pp.679-686
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• 2018

Reverse osmosis (RO) concentration of sodium chloride, sodium acetate, and sodium citrate solutions has been performed by polyamide RO membrane. Concentration polarization phenomena was also studied by changing pressure, solute kinds, and initial solution concentration. Pressure effect on permeation flux was that the increase of flux was accompanied by the increase of pressure. Flux increase was observed by the decrease of initial solution concentration. Surface concentration on the RO membrane increases and so flux declines due to the concentration polarization. In the later phase of concentration, concentration polarization effect was decreased by the back diffusion of solute from the polariztion layer. In case of sodium citrate, its large ion size and charge density resulted in the discrepancy between theory and experimental data of concentration polarization. It may be due to electric repulsion on the membrane surface.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.185-190
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• 2012

Rejection characteristics of perchlorate ($ClO_4^-$) were examined for commercially available reverse osmosis (RO) and nanofiltration (NF) membranes. A bench-scale dead-end stirred-cell filtration system was employed to determine the toxic ion rejection and the membrane flux. Model water solutions were used to prepare $ClO_4^-$ solutions (approximately, $1,000{\mu}g/L$) in the presence of background salts (NaCl, $Na_2SO_4$, and $CaCl_2$) at various pH values (3.5, 7, and 9.5) and solution ionic strengths (0.001, 0.01, and 0.01 M NaCl) in the presence of natural organic matter (NOM). Rejection by the membranes increased with increasing solution pH owing to increasingly negative membrane charge. In addition, the rejection of the target ion by the membranes increased with increasing solution ionic strength. The rejection of $ClO_4^-$ was consistently higher for the RO membrane than for the NF membrane and $ClO_4^-$ rejection followed the order $CaCl_2$ < NaCl < $Na_2SO_4$ at conditions of constant pH and ionic strength for both the RO and NF membranes. The possible influence of NOM on $ClO_4^-$ rejection by the membranes was also explored.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.96-104
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• 2019

The purpose of this paper is whether or not the in-situ restoration of the reverse osmosis (RO) membranes which its membrane function is lost is possible. The damaged RO membranes are double coated through the salting-out method by the poly(styrene sulfonic acid) sodium salt as the cationic exchange polymer and the polyethyleneimine as the anionic exchange polymer and also conducted the opposite order of the coating materials. And according to the concentration, time and ionic strength, the flux and rejection are measured for the coated membranes. Then the best coating condition is to apply for the RO membrane module of the household water purifier to know the possibility of the in-situ restoration for the commercial module. When the condition of the PEI 30,000 ppm (IS = 0.1)/PSSA 20,000 ppm (IS = 0.7) is applied, the rejection was enhance from 69% for the damaged module to 86% (90% for the pristine module).

• Membrane Journal
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.332-342
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• 2015

In this study, to solve the major problem of reverse osmosis (RO) membrane, surface of reverse osmosis membrane was modified by silane-epoxy multi layer. Octyltrimethoxysilane (OcTES) was polymerized to membrane surface via cross-linking by Sol-gel method. n = 8 alkylgroup of OcTES formed the branch structure by self assembly. And for improve fouling resistance of RO membrane, Ether group of ethylene glycol diglycidyl ether (EGDE) was given to improve hydrophilicity of RO membrane surface by ring-opening. To analyze structure of RO membrane surface with FE-TEM and AFM. Membrane surface of the ridge and valley structure and the bridge structure was confirmed due to the multi-layer surface modification of OcTES and EGDE. And through the increase of the roughness, the branch structure was formed well on membrane surface. Through the XPS analysis was identified chemical structure of membrane surface. And confirmed that the hydrophilic surface modification is given to the surface of the film through a Contact angle analysis. In optimization of EGDE surface modification condition, was suitable 0.5 wt% EGDE concentraion and $70^{\circ}C$ ring-opening temperature. In result of fouling resistance test and MFI is SUL-H10, $PA-OcTES_{1.0}$, $PA-OcTES_{1.0}-EGDE_{0.5}$ 68.7, 60.4, 5.4 ($10E-8hr/mL^2$), multi-layer surface modified membrane improved fouling resistance.

• Prospectives of Industrial Chemistry
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.9-20
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• 2011

전 세계는 물 부족 문제를 해결하기 위한 대체수자원 개발에 다양한 노력을 기울이고 있으며, 그 중에 해수 담수화 기술이 가장 주목받고 있다. 특히 역삼투 방식의 해수담수화기술은 기존 증발식에 비해 에너지 소비량이 적기 때문에 매년 10% 이상의 높은 성장률을 기록하고 있다. 그러나 역삼투 방식의 해수담수화는 지표수를 이용하는 시스템에 비해 상당히 많은 에너지를 필요로 한다. 따라서 에너지 효율을 높이기 위한 다양한 공정 개발이 시도되고 있으며, 그 중에 대표적인 기술이 삼투현상을 이용한 FO (Forward Osmosis)와 PRO (Pressure Retarded Osmosis) 공정이다. 본 논문에서는 역삼투막을 이용한 해수담수화 기술의 현황과 한계를 살펴보고, 현 해수담수화공정을 보완할 기술로써 FO와 PRO 공정개발에 관한 최근 연구 동향과 이러한 신기술의 상용화에 필수적으로 요구되는 막에 대한 개발 현황을 살펴보았다.