• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.303-310
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• 2017

Pressure retarded osmosis(PRO) has attracted much attention as potential technology to reduce the overall energy consumption for reverse osmosis(RO) desalination. The RO/PRO hybrid process is considered as the most logical next step for future desalination. The PRO process aims to harness the osmotic energy difference of two aqueous solutions separated by a semipermeable membrane. By using the concentrated water(RO brine) discharged from existing RO plants, the PRO process can effectively exploit a greater salinity gradient to reduce the energy cost of processing concentrated water. However, in order to use RO brine as the draw solution, PRO membrane must have high water flux and enough mechanical strength to withstand the high operational pressure. This study investigates the development of a thin film composite PRO membrane and spiral wound module for high power density. Also, the influence of membrane backing layer on the overall power density was studied using the characteristic factors of PRO membranes. Finally, the performance test of an 8-inch spiral wound module was carried out under various operating conditions(i.e. hydraulic pressure, flow rate, temperature). As the flow rate and temperature increased under the same hydraulic pressure, the PRO performance increased due to the growth of water permeability coefficient and osmotic pressure. For a high performance PRO system, in order to optimize the operating conditions, it is highly recommended that the flow pressure be minimized while the flow rate is maintained at a high level.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.75-82
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• 2018

Forward osmosis (FO) desalination system has been highlighted to improve the energy efficiency and drive down the carbon footprint of current reverse osmosis (RO) desalination technology. To improve the trade-off between water flux and salt rejection of thin film composite (TFC) desalination membrane, thin film nanocomposite membranes (TFN), in which nanomaterials as a filler are embeded within a polymeric matrix, are being explored to tailor the separation performance and add new functionality to membranes for water purification applications. The objective of this article is to develop a graphene nanocomposite membrane with high performance of water selective permeability (high water flux, high salt rejection, and low reverse solute diffusion) as a next-generation FO desalination membrane. For advances in fabrication of graphene oxide (GO) membranes, layer-by-layer (LBL) technique was used to control the desirable structure, alignment, and chemical functionality that can lead to ultrahigh-permeability membranes due to highly selective transport of water molecules. In this study, the GO nanocomposite membrane fabricated by LBL dip coating method showed high water flux ($J_w/{\Delta}{\pi}=2.51LMH/bar$), water selectivity ($J_w/J_s=8.3L/g$), and salt rejection (99.5%) as well as high stability in aqueous solution and under FO operation condition.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2011.10a
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• pp.1.1-1.1
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• 2011

Electrospinning has known to be very effective tool for production of versatile one-dimensional (1D) nanostructured materials such as nanofibers, nanorod, and nanotubes and for easily assembly to two-, three-dimensional(2D, 3D) nanostructures such as thin film, membrane, and nonwoven web, etc. We have studied on the electrospinning technology for novel energy storage and conversion materials such as advanced separator, dye sensitized solar cell, supercapacitor, etc. High heat-resistive nanofibrous membrane as a new separator for future lithium ion polymer battery was prepared by electrospinning of PVdF based composite solution. The novel nanofibrous composite nonwovens have tensile strength of above 50 MPa and modulus of above 1.3 GPa. The internal structure of the electrospun composite nanofiber with a diameter of few hundreds nanometer were composed of core-shell nanostructure. And also electrospun $TiO_2$ nanorod/nanosphere based dye-sensitized solar cells with high efficiency are successfully prepared. Some battery performance will be introduced.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.76-84
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• 2006

Arrayed ultrasonic sensors based on the piezoelectric thin film (lead-zirconate-titanate: Pb($Zr_{0.52}Ti_{0.48})O_{3}$) having composite membrane structure are fabricated. Different thermal and elastic characteristics of each layer generate the residual stress during the high temperature deposition processes, accomplished diaphragm is consequently bowing. We present the membrane deflection effects originated from the residual stress on the resonant frequencies of the sensor chips. The resonant frequencies ($f_r$) measured of each sensor structures are located in the range of $87.6{\sim}111\;kHz$, these are larger $30{\sim}40\;kHz$ than the resultant frequencies of FEM. The primary factors of $f_r$ deviations from the ideal FEM results are the membrane deflections, and the influence of stiffness variations are not so large on that. Membrane deflections have the effect of total thickness increase which sensitively change the $f_r$ to the positive direction. Stress generations of the membrane are also numerically predicted for considering the effect of stiffness variations on the $f_r$.

• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
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• 1998.06a
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• pp.135-153
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• 1998

Nanofiltration (NF) is a recently introduced term in membrane separation. In 1988, Eriksson was one of the first authors using the word 'nanofiltration' explicitly. Some years before, FilmTech started to use this term for their NF50 membrane which was supposed to be a very loose reverse osmosis membrane or a very tight ultrafiltration membrane. Since then, this term has been introduced to indicate a specific boundary of membrane technology in between ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis. The application fields of the NF membranes are very broad as follows: Demeneralizing water, Cleaning up contaminated groundwater, Ultrapure water production, Treatment of effleunts containing heavy metals, Offshore oil platforms, Yeast production, Pulp and paper mills, Textile production, Electroless copper plating, Cheese whey production, Cyclodextrin production, Lactose production. The earliest NF membrane was made by Cadotte et al, using piperazine and trimesoyl chloride as monomers for the formation of polyamide active layer of the composite type membrane. They coated very thin interfacially potymerized polyamide on the surface of the microporous polysulfone supports. The NF membrane exhibited low rejections for monovalent anions (chloride) and high rejections for bivalent anions (sulphate). This membrane was called NS300. Some of the earliest NF membranes, like the NF40 membrane of FilmTech, the NTR7250 of Nitto-Denko and the UTC20 and UTC60 of Toray, are formed by a comparable synthesis route as the NS300 membrane. Commercially available NF membranes nowadays are as follows: ASP35 (Advanced Membrane Technology), MPF21; MPF32 (Kiryat Weizmann), UTC20; UTC60; UTC70; UTC90 (Toray), CTA-LP; TFCS (Fluid Systems), NF45; NF70 (FilmTec), BQ01; MX07; HG01; HG19; SX01; SX10 (Osmonics), 8040-LSY-PVDI (Hydranautics), NF CA30; NF PES 10 (Hoechst), WFN0505 (Stork Friesland). The typical ones among the commercially available NF membranes are polyamide composite membrane consisting of interfacially polymerized polyamide active layer and microporous support. While showing high water fluxes and high rejections of multivalent ions and small organic molecules, these membranes have relatively low chemical stability. These membranes have low chlorine tolerance and are unstable in acid or base solution. This chemical instability is appearing to be a big obstacle for their applications. To improve the chemical stability, we have tried, in this study, to prepare chemically stable NF membranes from PVA. The ionomers and interfacially polymerized polyamide were used for the modification of'the PVA membranes. For the detail study of the active layer, homogeneous NF membranes made only from active layer materials were prepared and for the high performance, composite type NF membranes were prepared by coating the active layer materials on microporous polysulfone supports.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.428-435
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• 2002

Pyroelectric $Pb(Zr_{0.3}Ti_{0.7})O_3$ (PZT30/70) thin film IR detectors has been fabricated and characterised. The PZT30/70 thin film was deposited onto $Pt/Ti/Si_3N_4/SiO_2/Si$ substrate by the sol-gel process. Four different substrate conditions were studied for their effects on the pyroelectric responses of the IR detectors. The substrate conditions were the combinations of the Si etching and the Pt/Ti patterning. In the Si etched substrate, the $Si_3N_4/SiO_2$ composite layer was used as silicon etch-stop, and was used as the membrane to support the PZT pyroelectric film element as well. The measured pyroelectric current and voltage responses of detectors fabricated on the micro-machined thin $Si_3N_4/SiO_2$ membrane were two orders higher than those of the detectors on the bulk-silicon. For detectors on the membrane substrate, the Pt/Ti patterned detectors showed a 2-times higher pyroelectric response than that of not-patterned detectors. On the other hand, the pyroelectric response of the detectors on the not-etched Si substrate was almost the same, regardless of the Pt/Ti patterning. It was also found that the rise time strongly depended on the substrate thickness: the thicker the substrate was, the longer the rise-time.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.54 no.4
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• pp.510-518
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• 2016

Ethyl cellulose-g-poly(ethylene glycol) (EP) was synthesized by esterification of carboxylic acid functionalized methoxy polyethylene glycol (MPEG-COOH) with ethyl cellulose (EC) in order to develop a hydrophilic substrate for thin-film composite (TFC) membrane in a forward osmosis (FO) system. A porous EP substrate, fabricated by a non-solvent induced phase separation method, was found to be more hydrophilic than the EC substrate due to the presence of polyethylene glycol (PEG) side chains in the EP. Since the EP substrate exhibits smaller water contact angles and higher porosity, the structural parameter (S) of TFC-EP is smaller than that of TFC-EC, indicating that internal concentration polarization (ICP) within porous substrates can occur less when TFC-EP is used as a membrane. For example, the water flux value of the TFC-EP is 15.7 LMH, whereas the water flux value of the TFC-EC is only 6.6 LMH. Therefore, we strongly believe that the TFC-EP could be a promising candidate with good FO performances.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 1999.07d
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• pp.1702-1703
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• 1999

We have prepared the plasma-polymerized membrane for pervaporation of organic-liquid mixtures by the plasma polymerization technique. Plasma polymerization techniques were utilized in the development of hydrophilic composite membranes having high hydrogen ion permeability and excellent dimensional stability. To develop an organic liquid permselective membrane. suppressing membrane swelling as well as enhancing the solubility difference is important, the objectives of the present study are to design a suitable membrane for an organic-mixture system by the control of the plasma-polymer solubility.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.417-429
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• 2019

Poly Sulfone nanofibers were electrospun to fabricate membranes of different characteristics. To fabricate the fiber mats, polymer concentration, flowrate, and current density were determined as the most influencing factors affecting the overall performance of the membranes and studied through Response Surface Methodology. The Box-Behnken Design method (three factors at three levels) was used to design, analyze, and optimize the parameters to achieve the best possible performance of the electrospun membranes in forward osmosis process. Also, internal concentration polarization that characterizes the efficiency of the forward osmosis membranes was determined to better assess the overall performance of the fabricated electrospun membranes. Water flux to reverse salt flux was considered as the main response to assess the performance of the membranes. As confirmed experimentally, best membrane performance with the minimal structural parameter value could be achieved when predicted optimal values were used to fabricate the membranes through electrospinning process.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.137-145
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• 2011

Membrane processes are major breakthrough for the removal of organic pollutants in water remediation. The separations of solutes depend on nature of the membranes and solutes. The separation performance depends on the nature of the solutes (i.e., molecular volume, polarity, and hydrophobicity) for the same membrane. As 4-chlorophenol is of more dipolemoment compared to 2-chlorophenol, the orientation of the molecule enables it pass through the pores of the membrane, which is of negatively charged and thus separation order follows: 2-chlorophenol > 4-chlorophenol. Hydrophobicity factor also supports the order. Addition of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) to chlorophenol solution shows remarkable increase in separation performance of the membrane. The improvement in separation is 1.8 and 1.5 times for 4- and 2- chlorophenol consecutively in case of 0.0082 M SDS (1cmc = 0.0082 M) in the solution. 4-chlorophenol has better attachment tendency with SDS because of its relatively more hydrophobic nature and thus reflects in performance i.e. the separation performance of 4-chlorophenol with SDS through the membrane is better compared to 2-chlorophenol.