• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.30 no.12
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• pp.655-659
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• 2020

Hydrogen isotopes (i.e. deuterium and tritium) are supplied to the tokamak in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) fuel cycle. One important part of the ITER fuel cycle is the recycling of unused fuel back to the tokamak, as almost 99 % of fuel is unburned during fusion reaction. For this, cryogenic distillation has been used in the isotope separation system (ISS) of ITER, but this technique tends to be energy-intensive and to have low selectivity (typically below 1.5 at 24 K). Recently, efficient isotope separation by porous materials has been reported in the so-called quantum sieving process. Hence, in this study, hydrogen isotope adsorption behavior is studied using chemically stable ZIF-11. At low temperature (40 K ~ 70 K), the adsorption increases and the sorption hysteresis becomes stronger as the temperature increases to 70K. Molar ratio of deuterium to hydrogen based on the isotherms shows the highest (max. 14) ratio at 50 K, confirming the possibility of use as a potential isotope separation material.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.173-180
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• 2022

Presence of ammonia in drinking water is very toxic to human health. Soluble ammonia contaminates ground water due to activities such as the use of fertilizer in crop, industrial effluents and burning of fossil fuel. Even low concentration of ammonia present in water will damage aqua environment such as marine organism. Membrane technology is an important process to remove ammonia from effectively from water. Flat sheet membrane, membrane contactor and membrane distillation are some of the methods used for water purification from ammonia. Membrane contractor is an efficient process in which ammonia is removed through liquid-gas or liquid-liquid mass transfer without change of phase unlike membrane distillation. However, the cost of ammonia removal in this method is high due to maintenance of very high pH. Zeolite has excellent ion exchange ability that enhances its ability to interact with ammonia and adsorb from wastewater. Mixed matrix membranes containing zeolite enhance the efficiency of ammonia adsorption and separation from wastewater. In this review the above discussed issues are summarized in detail.

• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
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• 1994.06a
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• pp.45-58
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• 1994

Over the last 20 years, membrane separation processes, such as reverse osmosis, ultrafiltration and microfiltration, have been widely adopted by different industries. Commercial uses of membrane have displaced conventional separation processes, such as distillation, evaporation, precoat filter and so on. Membrane separation processes are often more capital and energy efficient when compared with conventional separation processes. Membrane devices and systems are almost always compact and modular. These are the well-known advantages of membrane separation processes. The disadvantage of the membrane process is that the process does not have scale merit and thus the membrane process is suitable for the small and middle size applications. Energy saving is, of course, the biggest advantage of the membrane process, and in many industries the membrane processes are employed because of this reason. Membrane process has other big advantage. In many applications membrane processes provide much higher quality of product than conventional processes. The example is ultrapure water production by membrane processes in semiconductor industry. Conventional technologies never offer such good quality of pure water. If you can obtain both energy saving and higher quality of product at the same time by membrane processes, this is the best application of membrane processes. One example is the concentration of orange juice by membrane, which has already been commercialized in Japan. Comparing with the conventional vacuum evaporation process, juice concentrated by the membrane process has much better taste and flavor and the energy consumption in the membrane process is much less than the evaporation process. In this paper, first membrane separation technology will be classified and then Japanese membrane manufacturers and new modules and devices under development in Japan will be introduced. Fourth energy saving in membrane process will be discussed and finally practical applications of membrane processes in Japan will be shown.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.28 no.9
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• pp.506-510
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• 2018

Nitrogen is a serious contaminant in natural gas because it decreases the energy density. The natural gas specification in South Korea requires a $N_2$ content of less than 1 mol%. Thus, cost-effective $N_2$ removal technology from natural gas is necessary, but until now the only option has been energy-intensive processes, e.g., cryogenic distillation. Using porous materials for the removal process would be beneficial for an efficient separation of $CH_4/N_2$ mixtures, but this still remains one of the challenges in modern separation technology due to the very similar size of the components. Among various porous materials, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) present a promising candidate for the potential $CH_4/N_2$ separation material due to their unique structural flexibility. A MIL-53(Al), the most well-known flexible metal-organic framework, creates dynamic changes with closed pore (cp) transitions to open pores (ops), also called the 'breathing' phenomenon. We demonstrate the separation performance of $CH_4/N_2$ mixtures of MIL-53(Al) and its derivative $MIL-53-NH_2$. The $CH_4/N_2$ selectivity of $MIL-53-NH_2$ is higher than pristine MIL-53(Al), suggesting a stronger $CH_4$ interaction with $NH_2$.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.369-376
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• 2023

In this study, the alternative to the energy-intensive conventional vacuum distillation process, an eco-friendly and energy-efficient pervaporation separation was employed in 1,2 hexane diol/water (HDO/water) mixture. The crosslinked PVA-glutaraldehyde was coated inside the alumina hollow fiber membrane (Al-HF). In the HDO/IPA pervaporation separation, optimization of the membrane concerning PVA/GA ratio, curing temperature, and pervaporation operating condition were performed. In the long-term stability test, the sustainable pervaporation separation performance giving flux in the range of 1.90~2.16 kg/m²h, and water content in permeate was higher than 99.5% (separation factor = 68) was obtained from the PVA/GA (molar ratio = 0.08, curing temperature = 80℃) coated Al-HF membrane from HDO/water (25/75, w/w, %) mixture at 40℃. Therefore, this work provides potential and inspiration for PVA-based membranes to mitigate excessive energy requirements in HDO/water separation by pervaporation.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.17-22
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• 2020

Light Naphtha is distillated from crude oil unit and separated into the methane, ethylene and propylene by boiling point difference in sequence. This separation is conducted using a series of binary-like columns. This separation method is known that the energy consumed in the reboiler is used to separate the heaviest components and most of this energy is discarded as vapor condensation in the overhead cooler. In this study, the first two columns of the separation process are replaced with the Petlyuk column. A structural design was exercised by the stage computation with ideal tray efficiency in equilibrium condition. Compared with the performance of a conventional system of 3-column model, The design outcome shows that the procedure is simple and efficient because the composition of the liquid component in the column tray was designed to be similar to the equilibrium distillation curve. The performance of the new process indicates that an energy saving of 12.1% is obtained and the cost savings of 44 million won per day based on gross domestic product is reduced under same total number of trays and the initial investment cost is saved.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.57 no.4
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• pp.484-491
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• 2019

An efficient propylene/propane separation technology is needed to obtain high-purity propylene, which is a raw material for polypropylene synthesis. Since conventional cryogenic distillation is an energy-intensive process due to the similar physicochemical properties of propylene and propane, adsorptive separation has gained considerable interest. In this study, we have computationally investigated the changes in adsorption separation performances by arbitrarily controlling the adsorption strength of open metal sites in two different types of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). Through the evaluation of adsorptive separation performances in terms of working capacity, selectivity, and Adsorption Figure of Merit (AFM), we have suggested proper density and strength of adsorption sites as well as appropriate temperature condition to obtain optimal propylene/propane adsorptive separation performances.