• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.413-420
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• 2019

Pretreatment system of desalination process using seawater reverse osmosis(SWRO) membrane is the most critical step in order to prevent membrane fouling. One of the methods is coagulation-UF membrane process. Coagulation-UF membrane systems have been shown to be very efficient in removing turbidity and non-soluble and colloidal organics contained in the source water for SWRO pretreatment. Ferric salt coagulants are commonly applied in coagulation-UF process for pretreatment of SWRO process. But aluminum salts have not been applied in coagulation-UF pretreatment of SWRO process due to the SWRO membrane fouling by residual aluminum. This study was carried out to see the effect of residual matal salt on SWRO membrane followed by coagulation-UF pretreatment process. Experimental results showed that increased residual aluminum salts by coagulation-UF pretreatment process by using alum lead to the decreased SWRO membrane salt rejection and flux. As the salt rejection and flux of SWRO membrane decreased, the concentration of silica and residual aluminum decreased. However, when adjusting coagulation pH for coagulation-UF pretreatment process, the residual aluminum salt concentration was decreased and SWRO membrane flux was increased.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.785-793
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• 2004

Coagulation has been investigated for pretreatment of low-pressure membrane systems such as microfiltration and ultrafiltration. Coagulation pretreatment can reduce foulants (particles and organic matter) prior to membrane filtration. However, when in-line coagulation or submerged type of filtration is used, flocculent aggregates could act as a foulant depending on concentrations and specific properties of floc. A natural water and three synthetic waters were used to investigate effects of coagulation pretreatment and presence of flocculent aggregates on membrane fouling. Coagulation pretreatment shows that foul ants were effectively removed during coagulation and the formed cake layer on the membrane surface had less resistances compared to raw natural water. In addition, little difference in membrane fouling was found by flocculent aggregates from the natural water. Interestingly, however, the results by three synthetic waters indicated that flocculent aggregates could have adverse effects on membrane fouling in a specific condition.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.223-229
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• 2015

The application of coagulation for feed water pretreatment prior to microfiltration (MF) process has been widely adopted to alleviate fouling due to particles and organic matters in feed water. However, the efficiency of coagulation pretreatment for MF is sensitive to its operation conditions such as pH and coagulant dose. Moreover, the optimum coagulation condition for MF process is different from that for rapid sand filtration in conventional drinking water treatment. In this study, the use of response surface methodology (RSM) was attempted to determine coagulation conditions optimized for pretreatment of MF. The center-united experimental design was used to quantify the effects of coagulant dose and pH on the control of fouling control as well as the removal organic matters. A MF membrane (SDI Samsung, Korea) made of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) was used for the filtration experiments. Poly aluminum chloride (PAC) was used as the coagulant and a series of jar tests were conducted under various conditions. The flux was $90L/m^2-h$ and the fouling rate were calculated in each condition. As a result of this study, an empirical model was derived to explore the optimized conditions for coagulant dose and pH for minimization of the fouling rate. This model also allowed the prediction of the efficiency of the coagulation efficiency. The experimental results were in good agreement with the predictions, suggesting that RSM has potential as a practical method for modeling the coagulation pretreatment for MF.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.235-244
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• 2006

A PCF(Pore Controllable Fiber Filter) process was applied as a pretreatment of water treatment for reduction of turbidity. The experimental results obtained from the PCF showed that the removal efficiency of turbidity without coagulation was around over 70 percent. However, the removal efficiency of turbidity by the coagulation-PCF process was high as much as over 95%. Thus, the coagulation pretreatment was required for the better operation of the PCF. The SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope) images of fiber before and after filtration showed that the filtration mechanism of PCF filter is both controlling attachment mechanism and Sieving mechanism through fiber pore. For the coagulation-PCF process, optimum dosage of coagulant was needed for the economical operation, and for this, determining the optimum dosage by using a filter column test. Also only 16mg/L of alum was used to obtain high algae removal efficiency over 90%. Therefore, it can be concluded that coagulation-PCF process is very effective pretreatment process for algae removal.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.159-163
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• 2018

The feasibility of applying coagulation-integrated microfiltration (MF) as a pretreatment for an ultrafiltration (UF) feed in oily wastewater treatment was investigated. The effects of different coagulants on oil removal rates from wastewater were studied. The maximum oil removal rate of 82% was obtained after coagulation with 130 mg/L of polyaluminium chloride (PAC). UF flux reached $95L/(m^2{\cdot}h)$ with coagulation-integrated MF as pretreatment. This value was 2.5 times higher than that flux obtained without pretreatment. The value of UF flux increased as the transmembrane pressure (TMP) and cross-flow velocity (CFV) of the UF module increased. UF flux gradually increased when TMP and CFV exceeded 0.4 MPa and 3 m/s, respectively, because of concentration polarization and membrane fouling stabilization. Chemical oxygen demand reduction and oil removal rate reached 95.2% and 98.5%, respectively, during integrated membrane processing with a PAC concentration of 130 mg/L, TMP of 0.4 MPa, and CFV of 3 m/s for UF. In addition, sequentially cleaning the fouling membrane with NaOH and $HNO_3$ aqueous solutions caused UF flux to recover to 90%. These encouraging results suggested that the hybrid integrated membrane process-based coagulation and MF + UF are effective approaches for oily wastewater treatment.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.767-773
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• 2011

The objectives of this research are to investigate the proper coagulation conditions which are a type and doses of coagulants, mixing conditions (velocity gradients and mixing times), pH and so on through Jar-test, to evaluate the flux variations, permeate, backwashing according to characteristics of pretreatment of the wastewater by means of MF membranes for river maintenance water reuse. The effluent water from B-city K-sewage treatment plant are used for this research. Turbidity and suspended solids(SS) are 14.2 NTU and 10.4 mg/L respectively. This condition causes fouling for membrane process. The flux decline could be reduced when coagulation pretreatment was carried out. Optimal coagulations PAC which are commonly used in the sewage treatment plant was observed in this research. The results indicate that an optimal coagulation dose and pH are 80 ppm and pH of 7 respectively, but coagulation efficiency was lower at strong acid or strong base. Results showed that continuous and steady operations in membrane separation process by means of the effective removal of organic matter and turbidity with coagulation pretreatment of sewage secondary effluent were achieved.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.285-292
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• 2021

Osmotic power is to produce electric power by using the chemical potential of two flows with the difference of salinity. Water permeates through a semipermeable membrane from a low concentration feed solution to a high concentration draw solution due to osmotic pressure. In a pressure retarded osmosis (PRO) process, river water and wastewater are commonly used as low salinity feed solution, whereas seawater and brine from the SWRO plant are employed as draw solution. During the PRO process using wastewater effluent as feed solution, PRO membrane fouling is usually caused by the convective or diffusive transport of PRO which is the most critical step of PRO membrane in order to prevent membrane fouling. The main objective of this study is to assess the PRO membrane fouling reduction by pretreatment to remove organic matter using coagulation-UF membrane process. The experimental results obtained from the pretreatment test showed that the optimum ferric chloride and PAC dosage for removal of organic matter applied for the coagulation and adsorption process was 50 mg/L as FeCl₃ (optimum pH 5.5). Coagulation-UF pretreatment process was higher removal efficiency of organic matter, as also resulting in the substantial improvement of water flux of PRO membrane.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.251-257
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• 2014

This research is focused on coagulation and sand filtration process as a pretreatment of RO seawater desalination. RO systems require sufficient and reliable pretreatment process to produce superior quality of RO feedwater that can mitigate RO membrane fouling. This experiment was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of coagulation and filtration process under various experimental conditions including different coagulant dose, flocculation mixing intensity and time, turbidity, and filtration rate. The experimental results showed that the optimum pretreatment conditions resulting in lower SDI value suitable for RO feedwater were coagulation pH 6.5, raw water turbidity greater than 4 NTU, and media bed depth greater than 550 mm. However, flocculation mixing intensity, coagulant dose, and filtration rate relatively affected little on the filtration efficiency.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.205-212
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• 2011

Reverse osmosis (RO) technology has developed over the past 40 years to control a 44% market share in the world desalting production capacity and an 80% share in the total number of desalination plants installed worldwide. The application of conventional and low-pressure membrane pretreatment processes to seawater RO (SWRO) desalination has undergone accelerated development over the past decade. Reliable pretreatment techniques are required for the successful operation of SWRO processes, since a major issue is membrane fouling associated with particulate matter/colloids, organic/inorganic compounds, and biological growth. While conventional pretreatment processes such as coagulation and granular media filtration have been widely used for SWRO, there has been an increased tendency toward the use of ultrafiltration/microfiltration (UF/MF) instead of conventional treatment techniques. The literature shows that both the conventional and the UF/MF membrane pretreatment processes have different advantages and disadvantages. This review suggests that, depending on the feed water quality conditions, the suitable integration of multiple pretreatment processes may be considered valid since this would utilize the benefits of each separate pretreatment.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.231-240
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• 2011

The objectives of this research are to investigate coagulation efficiencies of two coagulants l.e., alum and polyaluminum chloride and to understand effects of the coagulants on membrane fouling in microfiltration. The turbidity of supernatant from alum coagulation was increased with increasing doses whereas the turbidity from PACl coagulation was maintained at the low values. The observed injection volume of PACl for the same removal was approximately 30 percent less than alum, which produced a low sludge volume. The settling velocity of PACl flocs was greater than alum flocs. The results corresponded well with floc size measurements. Flux decline from alum coagulation was significant due in part to small sizes of flocs. At the low dose, alum floc had less specific cake resistance than PACl floc. However, as the dosage was increased, the increases in specific cake resistances of alum was substantial. Alum coagulation pretreatment needs careful operation to reduce membrane fouling by flocs. In general, PACl coagulants were more effective than alum coagulants for pretreatment of membrane processes because PACl showed the better performance in coagulation and membrane fouling.