• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Soil and Groundwater Environment Conference
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• 2002.04a
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• pp.243-245
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• 2002

Brackish water desalination using reverse osmosis(RO) membrane is more useful and economic than sea water to solve the shortage of fresh water supply because of its low total dissolved solid(TDS) contents. Silica and humic acid in brackish water make serious fouling problems and cause the decline of permeate flux and increase of operating pressure. In this study, the experiments for removal of silica and humic acid were conducted with calcite particles to prevent membrane fouling and investigated the effect of pH of feed water Adsorption of silica to calcite was higher at pH=7.5 than 9.5 and removal rate was increased according to increase of initial concentration of silica. The effect of pH on adsorption of humic acid was not significant but at low initial concentration the adsorption of humic acid was enhanced at pH 7.5. The result of this study expect to apply to brackish water desalination experiment of flat-sheet reverse osmosis membrane.

• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
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• 1999.04a
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• pp.115-118
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• 1999

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.149-157
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• 2011

Nanofiltration (NF) experiments were conducted to investigate fouling of Al-hydroxide precipitate and the influence of organic compound, inorganic compound, and their combination, i.e., multiple foulants. $CaCl_2$ and $MgSO_4$ were employed as surrogates of inorganic compounds while humic acid was used as surrogate of organic compound. The flux attained from NF experiments was fitted with the mathematical fouling model to evaluate the potential fouling mechanisms. Al-hydroxide fouling with a cake formation mechanism had little effect on the NF membrane fouling regardless of the Al concentration. The NF fouling by Al-hydroxide precipitate was deteriorated in presence of inorganic matter. The effect of Mg was more critical in increasing the fouling than Ca. This is because the Mg ions enhanced the resistances of the cake layer accumulated by the Al-hydroxide precipitate on the membrane surfaces. However, the fouling with Mg was dramatically mitigated by adding humic acid. It is interesting to observe that the removal of the conductivity was enhanced to 61.2% in presence of Mg and humic acid from 30.9% with Al-hydroxide alone. The influence of dissolved matter (i.e., colloids) was more negative than particulate matter on the NF fouling for Al-hydroxide precipitate in presence of inorganic and organic matter.

• Korean Membrane Journal
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.21-28
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• 2009

We investigated the effect of organic materials on membrane fouling in advanced drinking water treatment by a hybrid module packed with granular activated carbon (GAC) outside multi-channel ceramic microfiltration membrane. Synthetic water was prepared with humic acid and kaolin to simulate natural water resouces consisting of natural organic matter and inorganic particles. Kaolin concentration was fixed at 30 mg/L and humic acid was changed as 2~10 mg/L to inspect the effect of organic matters. Periodic back-flushing using permeate water was performed for 10 sec per filtration of 10 min. As a result, both resistance of membrane fouling (Rf) and permeate flux (J) were influenced highly by concentration of humic acid. It proved that NOM like humic acid could be an important factor on membrane fouling in drinking water treatment. Turbidity and UV254 absorbance were removed up to above 97.4% and 59.2% respectively.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.140-144
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• 2006

This study was performed to investigate the effect of organic characteristics and feed water solution chemistry on membrane fouling index such as Silt Density Index (SDI) and Modified Fouling Index (MFI). Specifically, Aldrich humic acids (AHA) and Suwannee river humic acids (SHA) were used in SDI/MFI experiments. Higher SDI values were observed with increasing organic concentration. AHA with larger molecular weight (MW) and SUVA (${\approx}UV_{254}/TOC$) resulted in higher SDI values, compared to SHA. The feed solution chemistry (i.e, pH, ionic strength, and hardness) also affects SDI values to some degree. In particular, SDI increased with increasing hardness ($Ca^{2+}$) concentration for AHA. Unlike SDI, the MFI developed on the basis of particle cake filtration theory, was not accurately assessed due to internal fouling by organics such as pore adsorption and subsequent pore blocking.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.737-744
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• 2016

The investigation of effects on fouling propensity with various viscosity of feed solutions would be better understanding for forward osmosis (FO) performance since the fouling propensity was directly influenced with solution viscosity. Therefore, this study was focused on the FO fouling with model foultants (humic acid, alginate) by altering solution viscosity with change of ionic strength (I.S) and $Ca^{2+}$ concentrations. In the comparison between humic acid and alginate, as expected, the alginate generally caused more severe fouling (almost 35.8 % of flux reduction) based on the solution characteristics (high viscosity) and fouling patterns (coil and gel layer). However, interesting point to note is that the fouling propensity of alginate was more severe even though it was applied with low viscosity of feed conditions (I.S = 20 mM, $Ca^{2+}=1mM$). This might be due to that crossed linked gel layer of alginate on the FO membrane surface could be best formed in the condition of $Ca^{2+}$ presence and higher I.S, and that is more dominant to fouling propensity than the low viscosity of feed solutions.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.34-43
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• 2005

The poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA)-based thin film composite nanofiltration (NF) membranes were prepared by coating polysulfone ultrafiltration membranes, sulfonated polyethersulfone and polyamide NF membranes with aqueous PVA solution by a pressurizing method. The PVA was cross-linked with aqueous glutaraldehyde solution. The NF membranes coated with a very low concentration of PVA on all the support membranes was successfully prepared. With increasing the hydrophilicity of the support membranes, the water flux increased. Especially, ζ-potential of negatively charged polyamide NF membrane was reduced by coating the membrane with PVA. A fouling experiment was carried out with positively charged surfactant, humic acid, complex of humic acid and calcium ion and bovine serum albumin. A non-coated polyamide NF membrane was significantly fouled by various foulants. The fouling process when using humic acid and protein occurred at the isoelectric point. There was severe fouling when using humic acid and adding bivalent cations. By coating the polyamide NF membrane with aqueous PVA solution, fouling was reduced. The polyamide NF membrane coated with PVA was resistant to the acidic and basic solution.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.276-283
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• 2019

In this study, The experiments of the confirmation of the fouling phenomena in CDI process and the establishment of its removal process conditions were carried out. The foulant concentrations of humic acid sodium salt (HA) added to the feed solution were 5, 10, 15 mg/L, respectively. The occurrence of fouling under the certain adsorption/desorption conditions could be confirmed with an increase in adsorption and desorption concentration curve over time. Both the voltage and time in adsorption and desorption processes were changed to eliminate the fouled pollutants. Typically, the fouling removal condition was found at the adsorption condition 1.2 V/5 min and the desorption condition -3 V/2 min, respectively.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.27 no.9
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• pp.965-969
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• 2005

Current density is an important operating parameter in the ion-exchange membrane process. We observed the effects of fouling of a Neosepta AMX anion-exchange membrane(Tokuyama Soda, Japan) in 0.02 M NaCl solution containing 100 mg/L sodium humate. Membrane fouling was analyzed by measuring the change in the electrical resistance in the under- and over-limiting current density regions. The experimental results found that membrane fouling was negligible at under-limiting current densities, but was increased significantly when an over-limiting current was supplied. After the fouling experiments, the current-voltage curves for the fouled membranes were measured. From the curves, we observed increased electric resistance and reduced limiting current density(LCD), caused by the accumulation of humic acid on the membrane surface. Furthermore, membrane fouling increased as the acidity of the electrolyte solution containing humic acid increased. This occurred because the fouling of an anion-exchange membrane is affected more by the physicochemical properties of the humic substance than by the surface charge of the humate.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.73-80
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• 2004

This study investigated the phenomena of membrane fouling by NOM and the effect of the fouling on removal of micro-pollutants. NOM has a great effect on decline of permeate flux. Permeate flow rate was reduced by 88% in RO and 34.8% in NF for 323hr operation period. Removal rate of $UV_{254}$, is 87.4% in RO and 78.5% in NF and removal rate of DOC is 42.7% in RO and 32.9% in NF for 2mg/l humic acid. Removal efficiency of the micro-pollutants by the RO and NF membranes fouled by humic acid was mostly lower than that by the new membrane. The concentration polarization which affects the flux and the rejection was thought to occur in the active layer of the membrane, as the membrane was getting fouled.