• Membrane Journal
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.209-217
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• 2022

Ion exchange membrane (IEM) is an important class of membrane applied in batteries, fuel cells, chloride-alkali processes, etc to separate various mono and multivalent ions. The membrane process is based on the electrically driven force, green separation method, which is an emerging area in desalination of seawater and water treatment. Electrodialysis (ED) is a technique in which cations and anions move selectively along the IEM. Anion exchange membrane (AEM) is one of the important components of the ED process which is critical to enhancing the process efficiency. The introduction of cross-linking in the IEM improves the ion-selective separation performance due to the reduction of free volume. During the desalination of seawater by reverse osmosis (RO) process, there is a lot of dissolved salt present in the concentrate of RO. So, the ED process consisting of a monovalent cation-selective membrane reduces fouling and improves membrane flux. This review is divided into three sections such as electrodialysis (ED), anion exchange membrane (AEM), and cation exchange membrane (CEM).

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.89-96
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• 2015

Smart water grid is a water network with communication to save water and energy using various water resources. In smart water grid, water product from the various sources can be blended to be supplied to end-users. The product water blending was reported by literatures while feed water blending has been rarely reported so far. In this work, a commercial reverse osmosis (RO) system design software provided by a membrane manufacturer was used to elucidate the effect of feed water blending on the performance of seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) plant. Fresh water from exisiting water resource was assumed to be blended to seawater to decrease salt concentration of the RO feed water. The feed water blending can simplify the RO system from double to single pass and decrease seawater intake amount, the unit prices of the RO system components including high pressure pump, and operation risk. Due to the increase in RO plant capacity with the feed water blending, however, the RO membrane area and total power consumption increase at higher water blending rates. Therefore, a specific benefit-cost analysis should be carried out to apply the feed water blending to SWRO plants.

• Carbon letters
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.93-100
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• 2015

Surface modified carbon felts were utilized as an electrode for the removal of inorganic ions from seawater. The surfaces of the carbon felts were chemically modified by alkaline and acidic solutions, respectively. The potassium hydroxide (KOH) modified carbon felt exhibited high Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface areas and large pore volume, and oxygen-containing functional groups were increased during KOH chemical modification. However, the BET surface area significantly decreased by nitric acid ($HNO_3$) chemical modification due to severe chemical dissolution of the pore structure. The capability of electrosorption by an electrical double-layer and the efficiency of capacitive deionization (CDI) thus showed the greatest enhancement by chemical KOH modification due to the appropriate increase of carboxyl and hydroxyl functional groups and the enlargement of the specific surface area.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.279-292
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• 2017

This study was aimed at ultrafiltration (UF) as a pretreatment before reverse osmosis (RO) within the scheme of hybrid reverse osmosis-multistage flush (RO-MSF) desalination. Seawater at elevated temperature (after MSF heat-exchangers) was used as a feed in this process. The pretreatment system was represented as a set of functionally-linked technological segments such as: UF filtration, backwashing, chemical- enhanced backwashing, cleaning, waste disposal, etc. The process represents the sequences of operating cycles. The cycle, in turn, consists of the following unit operations: filtration, backwashing and chemical-enhanced backwashing (CEB). Quantitative assessment was based on the following indicators: normalized permeability, transmembrane pressure, specific energy and water consumption, specific waste generation. UF pre-treatment is accompanied by the following waste streams: $W1=1.19{\times}10$ power of $-2m^3$ (disposed NaOCl with 0.0044% wt.)/$m^3$ (filtrate); $W2=5.95{\times}10$ power of $-3m^3$ (disposed $H_2SO_4$ with 0.052% wt.)/$m^3$(filtrate); $W3=7.26{\times}10$ power of $-2m^3$ (disposed sea water)/$m^3$ (filtrate). Specific energy consumption is $1.11{\times}10$ power of $-1kWh/m^3$ (filtrate). The indicators evaluated over the cycles with conventional (non-chemical) backwashing were compared with the cycles accompanied by CEB. A positive impact of CEB on performance indicators was demonstrated namely: normalized UF resistance remains unchanged within the regime accompanied by CEB, whereas the lack of CEB results in 30% of its growth. Those quantitative indicators can be incorporated into the target function for solving different optimization problems. They can be used in the software for optimisation of operating regimes or in the synthesis of optimal flow- diagram. The cycle characteristics, process parameters and water quality data are attached.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.36 no.7
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• pp.492-497
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• 2014

This study investigated removal characteristics of organic matters in pretreatment and reverse osmosis (RO) membrane processes for seawater desalination. Also, the influence of the changes in characteristics of organic matters on the membrane fouling was assessed. The pretreatment processes included dual media filtration (DMF), pressurized membrane filtration (MF), and submerged membrane filtration (SMF). Turbidity, UV absorption at 254 nm, dissolved organic carbon, size exclusion chromatography (SEC), fluorescence excitation emission matrix (FEEM), and transparent exopolymer particles (TEP) in raw and processed waters were analyzed. Ions and minerals were not removed by any pretreatment process tested, but were removed over 99% through the RO membrane process. Hydrophobic organics, which can play major role in organic membrane fouling, were relatively readily removed compared with hydrophilic ones. Membrane based pretreatment such as MF and SMF exhibited better removals of organics than conventional DMF. As the levels of organics in pretreated water decreased, the silt density index (SDI) decreased. MF treated water exhibited the lowest SDI value; this is possibly due to the lowest TEP ($0.1-0.4{\mu}m$) concentrations.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.721-728
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• 2016

97% of water on earth exists in the form of seawater. Therefore, the use of marine resources is one of the most important research issues at present. The use of seawater is expanding in various fields (seawater desalination, cooling water for nuclear power plants, deep seawater utilization, etc.). Seawater intake systems utilizing sand filters in order to take in clean seawater are being actively employed. For the intake pipe used in this system, assuring equal intake flows through the respective holes is very important to improve the efficiency of the intake and filtering process. In this study, we analyzed the efficiency of the dual structure perforated pipe used in the seawater intake system using 3D numerical simulations and the inflow rate according to the gap of the up holes. In the case of decreasing gaps in the up holes toward the pipe end, the variation of the total inflow rate was small in comparison with the other cases. However, the standard deviation of the inflow rate through the up holes was the lowest in this case. Also, stable flow occurred, which can improve the efficiency of the intake process. In the future, a sensitivity analysis of the various conditions should be performed based on the results of this study, in order to determine the factors influencing the efficiency, which can then be utilized to derive optimal designs suitable for specific environments.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Marine Environment & Energy
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.333-337
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• 2014

The purpose of this study is to develop a process technology to produce high hardness concentrated seawater removing chloride ions but containing useful minerals such as magnesium and calcium in the seawater desalination process. In order to make high hardness concentrated seawater, evaporation system is mostly used recently. Because evaporation system requires a large amount of energy consumption, in this study, it was aimed to produce high hardness concentrated seawater using membrane filtration requiring less energy. Nano filtration membranes were used for the experiments, and different types of high hardness concentrated seawater was produced depending on the membranes' specification, the number of times being concentrated, and pressure. As a result, at between 15bar and 20 bar in pressure, in between the second and the third times of concentration, the experiment result showed the best economic efficiency. By the experiment, production of high hardness concentrated seawater seemed to have a good economic feasibility.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.40 no.7
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• pp.477-484
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• 2016

In a multi-effect solar distiller, a feeding rate of seawater to each effect should be decreased as the effect number is increased. In previous studies, the feed rate of seawater was not reduced evenly between the effects, which is unreasonable, since the thermal energy input of each effect decreases by the same amount. In this work, numerical analysis was carried out in order to elucidate this discrepancy. The results showed that the amount of distillates produced was almost the same for both evenly and unevenly reduced flow rates between the effects. Optimum feed rates of seawater with various energy inputs from exhaust gas heat exchanger were also obtained. The results showed that the optimum feed rate of the first effect increased linearly or reached a steady state depending on the heat flux.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.21-27
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• 2013

The present study explored the way to desalinate seawater for agricultural irrigation using forward osmosis (FO) process using liquid fertilizer as draw solution. FO experiments were performed in a cross flow mode using flat sheet FO membrane. The effect of membrane orientation, flow rate, and draw solution concentration on the performance of forward osmosis was investigated by measuring water flux of forward osmosis membrane. The water flux when the draw solution was placed against the membrane active layer was lower than the water flux when the feed solution was placed against the membrane active layer. This results indicated that the decrease of effective osmotic pressure by dilutive internal concentration polarization was less than that by concentrative internal concentration polarization. Increasing flow rate from 66.7 to 133.1 $cm^3$/min resulted in increase of the water flux when the membrane active layer orient to draw solution and feed solution, respectively. The reduction of resistance to water flow increased water flux at higher flow rate. The water flux of FO membrane increased with increasing draw solution concentration from 10000 to 30000 mg/L. The water flux for $KH_2PO_4$ draw solution was similar to that for commercial fertilizer. Optimization of FO process would contribute to economically desalinate brackish water for agricultural use.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Marine Environment & Energy
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.60-66
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• 2005

When external pressure higher than osmosis pressure is reversely derived into solution, its solvent is moved into the solution having lower concentration, which is called 'reverse osmosis'. We investigated the desalination application of deep ocean water using reverse osmosis pressure of $40-70\;kgf/cm^2$ We observed how to operational factor j like flow rate, water temperature and pressure have effect on efficiency of reverse osmosis membrane and salts rejection. Fluxes of reverse osmosis membrane are directly proportional to water temperature and pressure. However, salts rejection rates are positively correlated with pressure and inversely proportional to water temperature. Separation efficiencies of osmosis membrane for major elements such as $Mg^{2+},\;Ca^{+2},\;Na^+\;and\;K^+$ are as follows in a strong electrolysis solution like seawater; $Ca^{2+},\;Mg^{2+}>K^+>Na^+$. Rejection rates of $Mg^{2+}\;and\;Ca^{2+}$ that have high electric charges are over 99% and show positively correlation with water temperature. Rejection rates of $Na^+$ having low electric charge is observed to be 98%-99%, which rates is much lower than those of $2^+$ charged ions like $Ca^{2+}\;and\;Mg^{2+}$. Ion rejection rates of boron, B, are much low because boron is present il free state or gas phase in seawater. Boron concentration in desalination water is over criteria of Korean drinking water, 0.3 mg/L. However, we could satisfied with the criteria of drinking water under the operation condition like temperature $5^{\circ}C$ and pressure $70kgf/cm^2$, using the relationship that rejection rates of boron is proportional to pressure and is inversely proportional to water temperature