• Membrane Journal
• /
• v.16 no.2
• /
• pp.106-114
• /
• 2006

This study is concerned with preparation of chlorine resistant (CR) thin layer composite (TFC) membranes. The novel method for making CR membranes from commercially available RO membranes is based on sol-gel condensation of trialkoxyalkylsilane derivatives. The silane coupling agents used in this study have different number of alkyl carbon chain group (methyltriethoxysilane; METES and octyltriethoxysilane; OCTES). The OCTES composite membranes have a significant tolerance to chlorine compared to commercial polyamide RO membrane or METES composite membranes. The surface properties of membranes were examined to explain a significant difference of chlorine tolerance between OCTES composite membrane and the other two membranes. In this study, we tried several surface analyses to explain difference of chlorine tolerance. The element composition results of surface analysis by EDX confirmed that both silane fixed on polyamide firmly, The surface roughness and contact angle results showed long chain alkyl group of OCTES enhancing hydrophobicity considerably than METES. The hydrophobicity plays an important role in chlorine resistance of membrane.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Marine Environment & Energy
• /
• v.17 no.1
• /
• pp.13-19
• /
• 2014

The feed temperature has an effect on the performance during desalination of seawater by membrane separation. When the permeate flux intends to increase using the waste heat, it is necessary to analyze the effect of feed temperature precisely on the membrane performance. The experiments were carried out to investigate the performance of membranes by varying the seawater temperature from $10^{\circ}C$ to $60^{\circ}C$. The increase of permeate flux with increase of feed temperature was interpreted as the change of water viscosity and the membrane itself. While the increase of permeate flux could be predicted by the viscosity change in case of nanoflitration membrane, there exists 30% difference between the experiment data and the prediction by the viscosity change in case of reverse osmosis (RO) membrane, which seems to be due to 8% decrease of the pore size in 60caused by the contraction of membrane with the increase of temperature. Therefore, the desalination of seawater should be carried out within the range that the elevation of temperature does not cause the alteration of membrane itself even for the purpose of increasing the permeate flux.

• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
• /
• 1995.10a
• /
• pp.94-100
• /
• 1995

In recent years it has become necessary to design water management system to minimize water consumption as well as satisfy more stringent environmental requirements. This is mainly due to the seasonal water shortage and environmental problems on water pollution that have taken place at many industrialized regions in Korea. Accordingly, membrane technology in Korea is finding increasing application in the water industry because it has been found to be effective and economic treatment method compared with conventional technology. The membrane processes with the greatest potential for water and wastewater treatment are microfiltration(MF), ultrafiltration(UF), nanofiltration(NF) and reverse osmosis (RO), which utilize pressure differentials.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
• /
• v.18 no.4
• /
• pp.387-394
• /
• 2002

The efficiency variation of UF(tubular)/RO(spiral wound) process using acrylic wastewater treated by photo-catalyst pretreatment and coagulant-filter-neutralization pretreatment processes were discussed wit the variation of appled pressure and temperature. Ultrafiltration tubular module using acrylic wastewater treated by photo-catalyst pretreatment and coagulant-filter-neutralization pretreatment processes was shown that COD and T-N were not highly affected with the variation of appled pressure and temperature. It was shown that removal efficiency of COD and T-N was low. Removal efficiency of TDS and turbidity with ultrafiltration tubular module was better with the acrylic wastewater by photo-catalyst pretreatment than acrylic wastewater by coagulant-filter-neutralization pretreatment. T-N and TDS were shown high removal efficiency in reverse osmosis membrane process.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.1-9
• /
• 2021

This study optimized the chemical cleaning process of discarded RO membranes for reuse in less demanding separation processes. The effect of physicochemical parameters, including the temperature, cleaning time, pH of the cleaning solution, and addition of additives, on the cleaning process was investigated. The membrane performance was evaluated by testing the flux recovery rate and salt rejection before and after the cleaning process. High temperatures (45-50 ℃) resulted in a better flux recovery rate of 71% with more than 80% salt rejection. Equal time for acid and base cleaning 3-3 h presented a 72.43% flux recovery rate with salt rejection above 85%. During acid and base cleaning, the best results were achieved at pH values of 3.0 and 12.0, respectively. Moreover, 0.05% concentration of ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid presented 72.3% flux recovery, while 69.2% flux was achieved using sodium dodecyl sulfate with a concentration of 0.5%; both showed >80% salt rejection, indicating no damage to the active layer of the membrane. Conversely, 0.5% concentration of sodium percarbonate showed 83.1% flux recovery and 0.005% concentration of sodium hypochlorite presented 85.2% flux recovery, while a high concentration of these chemicals resulted in oxidation of the membrane that caused a reduction in salt rejection.

• Clean Technology
• /
• v.7 no.3
• /
• pp.179-185
• /
• 2001

Some companies are trying to develop the microfiltration membranes because most of them used as a prefilter is imported in Korea. However, they are faced with much difficulty such as characterization of membrane and controlling of pore size on development. In this study, a microfiltration membrane developed by a company was evaluated for applicability to use as a prefilter before reverse osmosis membrane process in production of ultra pure water. The optimum feed pressure for the raw water was obtained at 0.2 to 0.4 atm. At that time, turbidity of the treated water was 0.4 NTU and flux was 6,000 to $9,000L/m^2/hr$. In case of the conventionally treated water, it showed the very stable flux and turbidity at 90% of recovery rate. The chemical cleaning was helpful to reduce the TMP for treated water. The turbidity was improved from 0.3 NTU to 0.1 NTU after chemical cleaning.

• Membrane Journal
• /
• v.17 no.1
• /
• pp.44-53
• /
• 2007

The primary objective of this study is to increase the extent of water flux and fouling resistance of nano-filtration or reverse osmosis membranes. This study was performed to investigate the effect of surface characteristics of silane coated membranes on modified fouling index. Commercial polyamide composite RO membrane (RE1812-LP) and NF membrane (ESNA4040-LF) were treated with silane coupling agents in ethanol at five different concentrations. The silane coupling reagent, aminopropylmethoxydiethoxysilane, contains one aminoalkyl and three alkoxy groups. The hydrophilic effect of aminoalkyl group of APMDES on the permeability and fouling resistance of the modified membrane was examined. The surfaces of the modified membranes were characterized by FE-SEM, contact angle analyzer, and zeta potentiometer in order to confirm successful sol-gel methods. The modified NF membranes showed significantly enhanced water flux and fouling resistance without a decrease in salt rejection in divalent ionic feed solution.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
• /
• v.8 no.6
• /
• pp.21-28
• /
• 2007

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of hydraulic retention time (HRT) on removal efficiencies of organic matter, nitrogen and phosphorus in MBR-RO process for treating synthetic sewage. In MBR process, turbidity was less than average 2 NTU and average removal efficiency showed more than 99% during the operation period(MBR 105 day). As a result of HRT variation, average removal efficiencies of $COD_{Cr}$ on HRT 6, 12, 18 and 24hour were about 72.4, 84, 88.6 and 92.5%, respectively. The $NH_4{^+}-N$ removal efficiency was about 60.2 85.5, 91.3 and 92.2%, respectively. T-N and T-P removal efficiencies increased from 53.7 and 56.8 to 82.5 and 86.4%, respectively as the HRT increased from 6 hour to 24 hour. In RO process, average removal efficiencies of color and $COD_{Cr}$ in RO permeate were about 99.9% and 96.8%, respectively. Also, removal efficiencies of T-N, $NH_4{^+}-N$, $NO_3{^-}-N$ and T-P were all above average 90%.

• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
• /
• 1993.10a
• /
• pp.7-12
• /
• 1993

Preparation of asymmetric polyimide membranes by the phase inversion process was investigated to develop ultrafiltration, reverse osmosis and pervaporation membranes for organic solutions, using a commercially available solvent-soluble polymaide. The influences of the various factors such as the composition of a cast solution, casting conditions, gelating solutions and others on membrane structure and performance were studied in detail, and it was made clear that a wide variety of asymmetric polyimide membranes ranging from UF to RO for organic solutions could be prepared from the aromatic polyimide used. It was also found that the chemical stability and separation performance of the asymmetric polyimide membranes could be improved by annealing in a liquid or a vacuum at above 200$\circ$. The membrane annealed at 300$\circ$ in a vacuum exhibited the separation factor $\alpha(H_2O/EtOH)$ of 900 with the flux of 1.0 kg/$m^2\cdot h$ at 60$\circ$C for an aqueous ethanol solution of 95 vol%.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
• /
• v.6 no.2
• /
• pp.127-139
• /
• 2015

Rejection of ionic solutes by reverse osmosis (RO) and nanofiltration (NF) membranes is controlled mainly by electrochemical interaction as well as pore size, but it is very difficult to directly evaluate such electrochemical interaction. In this work, we used an inverse HPLC method to investigate the interaction between ionic solutes and poly (m- phenylenediaminetrimesoyl) (PPT), a polymer similar to the skin layer of polyamide RO and NF membranes. Silica gel particles coated with PPT were used as the stationary phase, and aqueous solutions of the ionic solutes were used as the mobile phase. Chromatographs obtained for the ionic solutes showed features typical of exclusion chromatographs: the ionic solutes were eluted faster than water (mobile phase), and the exclusion intensity of the ionic solute decreased with increasing solute concentration, asymptotically approaching a minimum value. The charge density of PPT was estimated to be ca. 0.007 mol/L. On the basis of minimum exclusion intensity, the exclusion distances between a salt and neutralized PPT was examined, and the following average values were obtained: 0.49 nm for 1:1 salts, 0.57 nm for 2:1 salts, 0.60 nm for 1:2 salts, and 0.66 nm for 2:2 salts. However, $NaAsO_2$ and $H_3BO_3$, which are dissolved at neutral pH in their undissociated forms, were not excluded.