• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.39 no.6
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• pp.513-518
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• 2015

Salinity gradient power (SGP) has attracted significant attention because of its high potential. In this study, we evaluate reverse electrodialysis (RED) with various compositions of available resources. The polarization curve (I-V characteristics) shows linear behavior, and therefore the power density curve has a parabolic shape. We measure the power density with varying compartment thicknesses and inlet flow rates. The gross power density increases with decreasing compartment thickness and increasing flow rate. The net power density, which is the gross power density minus the pumping power, has a maximum value at a compartment thickness of 0.2 mm and an inlet flow rate of 22.5 mL/min. The power density in RED is also evaluated with compositions of desalination brines, seawater, river water, wastewater, and brackish water. A maximum power density of $1.75W/m^2$ is obtained when brine discharged from forward osmosis (FO) and river water are used as the concentrated and the diluted solutions, respectively.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.401-408
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• 2016

Desalination is getting more attention as an alternative to solve a global water shortage problem in the future. Especially, a desalination technology is being expected as a new growth engine of Korea's overseas plant business besides one of the solutions of domestic water shortage problem. In the past, a thermal evaporation technology was a predominant method in desalination market, but more than 75% of the current market is hold by a membrane-based reverse osmosis technology because of its lower energy consumption rate for desalination. In the future, it is expected to have more energy efficient desalination process. Accordingly, various processes are being developed to further enhance the desalination energy efficiency. One of the promising technologies is a desalination process combined with Pressure Retarded Osmosis (PRO) process. The PRO technology is able to generate energy by using osmotic pressure of seawater or desalination brine. And the other benefits are that it has no emission of $CO_2$ and the limited impact of external environmental factors. However, it is not commercialized yet because a high-performance PRO membrane and module, and a PRO system optimization technology is not sufficiently developed. In this paper, the recent research direction and progress of the SWRO-PRO hybrid desalination was discussed regarding a PRO membrane and module, an energy recovery system, pre-treatment and system optimization technologies, and so on.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.78-95
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• 1991

Water factory 21(WF 2) in Orange County California, is a advanced wastewater treatment(AWT) plant designed to reclaim biologically treated munidpal wastewater for injection into a seawater barrier system. Processes included are lime treatment air stripping, filtration, activated carbon adsorption, reverse osmosis(RO), and chlorination. The effectiveness of each treatment process is presented including pretreatment, RO dimineralization. The data collected show that the processes, including RO, used at WF-21 are capable of producing a very high quality water on a reliable basis. Treatment reduced all contaminants, to levels below national primary drinldng water regulation maximum contaminant levels. It was found that lime clarified secondary effluent can be used as feedwater to a RO dimineralizer. Experiments with new low pressure membrane(250psi) show great potential for reducing RO cost.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.423-433
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• 2020

Direct current (DC) electric fields have been used for electro-osmotic dewatering. Under DC conditions, however, the electrical contact resistance between the electrode and the dewatering material increases considerably during the process of dewatering. Such a circumstance hinders the continuation of effective electro-osmotic dewatering. To reduce this hindrance, an applied pulse electric field with periodic reversals of the electrode polarity should improve electro-osmotic dewatering. In this study, electro-osmotic dewatering under pulse conditions was experimentally investigated for electrode polarity reversals. During the dewatering process, the pulse electric field was able to reduce the hindrance caused by the DC, resulting in an increased final dewatered amount relative to that under a DC electric field. For a constant applied voltage, the reversed polarity condition, under which the electric current passing through the material was almost unchanged with time, yielded the maximum final dewatered amount. This technique can be used to enhance drainage from a water storage facility during a period of extreme drought and the seawater desalination plants using reverse osmosis in drought stricken coastal regions.

• Transactions of the KSME C: Technology and Education
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.69-73
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• 2013

This study is about the secondary concentration technology using electrodialysis process for minimum discharge and maximize recovery ratio from seawater desalination by reverse osmosis process. The experimental method adopted the constant voltage driving method and, concentrated/desalination volume capacity ratio changes, voltage changes and electrolyte types. Multi-ion membrane is used, aiming to derive conditions to minimize the TDS concentration of desalination water, to minimize the volumes of secnodary concentraion water and minimizing the power efficiency. The results of this study are as follows. The optimal ratio of concentraion/desalination volume is 1:5, the final TDS concentration of desalinated water is 5.32g/l, the final secnodary concentrated water salinity is 17.07% and electric energy demands of desalinated water is $16.74kWh/m^3$.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2018

Recently, interest in the development of alternative water resources has been increasing rapidly due to environmental pollution and depletion of water resources. In particular, seawater desalination has been attracting the most attention as alternative water resources. As seawater desalination consumes a large amount of energy due to high operating pressure, many researches have been conducted to improve energy efficiency such as energy recovery device (ERD). Consequently, this study aims to compare the energy efficiency of RO process according to ERD of isobaric type which is applied in scientific control pilot plant process of each $100m^3/day$ scale based on actual RO product water. As a result, it was confirmed that efficiency, mixing rate, and permeate conductivity were different depending on the size of the apparatus even though the same principle of the ERD was applied. It is believed that this is caused by the difference in cross-sectional area of the contacted portion for pressure transfer inside the ERD. Therefore, further study is needed to confirm the optimum conditions what is applicable to the actual process considering the correlation with other factors as well as the factors obtained from the previous experiments.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.185-196
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• 2010

Korea is presently the leading country in global desalination industry and has been investing a large amount of money and human resources in development of new core technologies to increase its' share of global market. In this paper, we reviewed world-wide trends of the advanced water industry and outlined various seawater desalination technologies developed so far. We also made some analysis on the directions and results of the government-lead R&D sponsorship in the field of seawater-freshening technology. Present studies showed that we need an institutional strategy to help domestic companies guarantee the credibility of the technologies developed by themselves based upon their experience of plant operation. Futhermore, strategic R&D programs to develope original technologies and localization of key components for desalination plants should be preceded in the near future.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.51-57
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• 2009

Biofouling in seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination process causes many problems such as flux decline, biodegradation of membrane, increased cleaning time, and increased energy consumption and operational cost. Therefore biofouling is considered as the most critical problem in system operation. To control biofouling in early stage, detection of the most problematic bacteria causing biofouling is required. In this study, six model bacteria were chosen; Bacillus sp., Flavobacterium sp., Mycobacterium sp., Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Pseudomonas fluorescens, and Rhodobacter sp. based on report in the literature and phylogenetic analysis of seawater intake and fouled RO membrane. The adhesion to RO membrane, the high pressure resistance, and the hydrophobicity of the six model bacteria were examined to find out their fouling potential. Rhodobacter sp. and Mycobacterium sp. were found to attach very well to RO membrane surface compared to others used in this study. The test of hydrophobicity revealed that the bacteria which have high hydrophobicity or similar contact angle with RO membrane ($63^{\circ}$ of contact angle) easily attached to RO membrane surface. P. aeruginosa which is highly hydrophilic ($23.07^{\circ}$ of contact angle) showed the least adhesion characteristic among six model bacteria. After applying a pressure of 800 psi to the sample, Rhodobacter sp. was found to show the highest reduction rate; with 59-73% of the cells removed from the membrane under pressure. P. fluorescens on the other hand analyzed as the most pressure resistant bacteria among six model bacteria. The difference between reduction rates using direct counting and plate counting indicates that the viability of each model bacteria was affected significantly from the high pressure. Most cells subjected to high pressure were unable to form colonies even thought they maintained their structural integrity.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.96-104
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• 2018

With the rapid increase in seawater desalination, the importance of boron rejection is rising. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of hydrophilic compounds on surface modification to maximize water flux and increase boron rejection. First, polyamide active layer was fabricated by interfacial polymerization of polysulfone ultrafiltration membrane with M-phenylenediamine (MPD) and trimesoyl chloride (TMC) to obtain Control polyamide membrane. Next, D-gluconic acid (DGCA) and D-gluconic acid sodium salt (DGCA-Na) were synthesized with glutaraldehyde (GA) and hydrochloric acid (HCl) by modifying the surface of Control polyamide membrane. XPS analysis was carried out for the surface analysis of the synthesized membrane, and it was confirmed that the reaction of surface with DGCA and DGCA-Na compounds was performed. Also, FE-SEM and AFM analysis were performed for morphology measurement, and polyamide active layer formation and surface roughness were confirmed. In the case of water flux, the membrane fabricated by the surface modification had a value of 10 GFD or less. However, the boron rejection of the membranes synthesized with DGCA and DGCA-Na compounds were 94.38% and 94.64%, respectively, which were 12.03 %p and 12.29 %p larger than the Control polyamide membrane, respectively.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.53 no.6
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• pp.808-813
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• 2015

Boron is difficult to be removed from seawater by simple RO (reverse osmosis) membrane process, because the size of boric acid ($B(OH)_3$), the major form of aqueous boron, is as small as the nominal pore size of RO membrane. Thus, the complexation of boric acid with polyols was suggested as an alternative way to increase the size of aqueous boron compounds and the complexation behavior was investigated with Raman spectroscopy. As a reference, the Raman peak for symmetric B-O stretching vibrational mode both in boric acid and borate ion (${B(OH)_4}^-$) was selected. A Raman peak shift ($877cm^{-1}{\rightarrow}730cm^{-1}$) was observed to confirm that boric acid in water is converted to borate ion as the pH increases, which is also correctly predicted by frequency calculation. Meanwhile, the Raman peak of borate ion ($730cm^{-1}$) did not appear as the pH increased when polyols were applied into aqueous solution of boric acid, suggesting that the boric acid forms complexing compounds by combining with polyols.