• Membrane Journal
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.87-95
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• 2024

Recent studies explore a wide array of desalination and water treatment methods, encompassing membrane processes such as reverse osmosis (RO), nanofiltration (NF), and electrodialysis (ED) to advanced capacitive deionization (CDI) and its membrane variant (MCDI). Comparative analyses reveal ED's cost-effectiveness in low-salinity scenarios, while hybrid systems (NF-MCDI, RO-NF-MCDI) show improved salt removal and energy efficiency. Novel ion separation methods (NF-CDI, NF-FCDI) offer enhanced efficacy and energy savings. These studies also highlight the efficiency of these methods in treating complex wastewater specific to various industries. Environmental impact assessments emphasize the need for sustainability in system selection. Additionally, the integration of microfabricated sensors into membranes allows real-time monitoring, advancing technology development. These studies underscore the variety and promise of emerging desalination and water treatment technologies. They provide valuable insights for enhancing efficiency, minimizing energy usage, tackling industry-specific issues, and innovating to surpass conventional method limitations. The future of sustainable water treatment appears bright, with continual advancements focused on improving efficiency, minimizing environmental impact, and ensuring adaptability across diverse applications.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.333-344
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• 2020

Advances in industrial development and waste management over several decades have reduced many of the impacts that previously affected ecosystems, however, there are still processes which discharge hazardous materials into environments. Among industries that produce industrial wastewaters, textile manufacturing processes play a noticeable role. This study was conducted to test a novel continuous combined commercial membrane treatment using polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), ultrafiltration (UF), and polyamide (PA) nanofiltration (NF) membranes for textile wastewater treatment. The synthetic textile wastewater used in this study contained sodium silicate, wax, and five various reactive dyes. The results indicate that the removal efficiency for physical particles (wax and resin) was 95% through the UF membrane under optimum conditions. Applying UF and NF hybrid treatment resulted in total effective removal of dye from all synthetic samples. The efficiency of sodium silicate removal was measured to be between 2.5 to 4.5% and 13 to 16% for UF and NF, respectively. The chemical oxygen demand in all samples was reduced by more than 85% after treatment by NF.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.299-305
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• 2019

Managed aquifer recharge (MAR) systems are gaining interest as an alternative to conventional water resources. However, when the water recovered in MAR systems, dissolved iron and manganese species may easily oxidize and they cause well screen clogging or require abandonment of extraction wells. In this study, both oxic and anoxic conditions were analyzed to verify the feasibility of the membrane filtration performance under various solution chemistries. The fouling mechanisms of the metal ions under anoxic conditions were also investigated by employing synthetic wastewater. The fouled membranes were then further analyzed to verify the major causes of inorganic fouling through SEM and XPS. The newly suggested anoxic process refining existing membrane process is expected to provide more precious information about nanofiltration (NF) membrane fouling, especially for demonstrating the potential advantages to chemical-free drinking water production for indirect potable reuse.

• Advances in environmental research
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.141-151
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• 2016

Large amounts of aluminum hydroxide ($Al(OH)_3$) exist in water purification sludge (WPS) because of the added aluminum coagulant in water treatment process. Notably, $Al(OH)_3$ is an amphoteric compound, can be dissolved in its basic condition using sodium hydroxide to form aluminate ions ($Al(OH)_4{^-}$). However, in a process in which pH is increasing, the humid acid can be dissolved easily from WPS and will inhibit the recovery and reuse of the dissolved aluminate ions. This study attempts to fix this problem by a novel approach to separate $Al(OH)_4{^-}$ ions using nanofiltration (NF) technology. Sludge impurity in a alkaline solution is retained by the NF membrane, such that the process recovers $Al(OH)_4{^-}$ ions, and significantly decreases the organic matter or heavy metal impurities in the permeate solution. The $Al(OH)_4{^-}$ ion is an alkaline substance. Experimental results confirm that a recovered coagulant of $Al(OH)_4{^-}$ ion can effectively remove kaolin particles from slightly acidic synthetic raw water.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.349-357
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• 2007

Reports of endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs), pharmaceutically active compounds (PhACs), and personal care products (PCPs) have raised substantial concern in important potable drinking water quality issues. Our study investigates the removal of EDCs, PhACs, and PCPs of 10 compounds having different physico-chemical properties (e.g., molecular weight, and octanol-water partition coefficient ($K_{OW}$)) by nanofiltration (NF) membranes. The rejection of micropollutants by NF membranes ranged from 93.9% to 99.9% depending on solute characteristics. A batch adsorption experiments indicated that adsorption is an important mechanism for transport/removal of relatively hydrophobic compounds, and is related to the octanol-water partition coefficient values. The transport phenomenon associated with adsorption may also depend on solution water chemistry such as pH and ionic strength influencing the pKa value of compounds. In addition, it was visually seen that the retention was somewhat higher for the larger compounds based on their molecular weight. These results suggest that the NF membrane retains many organic compounds due to both hydrophobic adsorption and size exclusion mechanisms.

• Food Science and Biotechnology
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.380-386
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• 2005

Optimal conditions of ultrafiltration (UF) and nanofiltration (NF) were investigated for separation and concentration of isoflavones and oligosaccharides from Sunmul. Levels of COD, BOD, and suspended solids (SS) in UF and NF permeates were also determined to evaluate effectiveness of these processes for reducing water pollution. Optimal UF operation conditions to achieve minimal fouling and maximal flux were $33-34^{\circ}C$ operating temperature and 2.3-2.4 bar trans-membrane pressure. Recovery yields of isoflavones and oligosaccharides in UF retentate were 11.49-28.16% and 12.77-27.57%, respectively. Increase in volumetric concentration factor (VCF) resulted in more functional compounds of isoflavones and oligosaccharides passing through UF membrane. Total isoflavone and oligosaccharide yields decreased by 3% as VCF increased from 6.0 to 8.0 and from 8.0 to 10.0, while decreased significantly by 10% as VCF decreased from 4.0 to 6.0. Optimal NF operating conditions were 192-195 psig operating pressure at $30-33^{\circ}C$. Total yields of isoflavones and oligosaccharides significantly decreased at VCF 8.0, whereas did not decrease up to VCF 6.0 during NF operation. Therefore, VCF 6.0 was recommended for economical process. COD and BOD decreased by more than 98% after NF process, and SS were not detected after UF process. These results indicated sequential filtration process was useful for separation of isoflavones and oligosaccharides from Sunmul and for reducing water contaminants.

• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.37-43
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• 2003

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.233-243
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• 2018

In this manuscript, $35m^3/d$ NF unit was designed and applied for surface water treatment of the River Nile water. Intake of Embaba drinking water treatment plant was selected to install that unit at since; it has the lowest water quality index value through the examined 6 sites in greater Cairo area. The optimized operating conditions were feed and permeate flow, 40 and $7m^3/d$, feed pressure 2.68 bar and flux rate $37.7l/m^2h$. The permeate water was drinkable according to Egyptian Ministerial decree 458/2007 for the tested parameters (physic-chemical, heavy metals, organic, algal, bacteriological and parasitological). Single and double sand filters were used as pretreatment for NF membranes but continuous clogging for sand filters moved us to use UF membrane as pretreatment for NF membrane.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.303-312
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• 2020

This study aims to investigate at a laboratory scale fluorides removal from an industrial wastewater having excessive F^- concentration through a hybrid process combining neutralization and membrane separation. For the membrane separation operation, both Reverse Osmosis (RO) and Nanofiltration (NF) were investigated and confronted. The optimized neutralization step with hydrated lime allowed reaching fluoride removal rates of 99.1± 0.4 %. To simulate continuous process, consecutive batch treatments with full recirculation of membrane process brines were conducted. Despite the relatively high super saturations with respect to CaF₂, no membrane cloaking was observed. The RO polishing treatment allowed decreasing the permeate fluoride concentration to 0.9± 0.3 mg/L with a fluoride rejection rate of 93± 2% at the optimal transmembrane pressure of around 100 psi. When NF membrane was used to treat neutralization filtrate, the permeate fluoride concentration dropped to 1.1± 0.4 mg/L with a fluoride rejection rate of 88± 5% at the optimal pressure of around 80 psi. Thus, with respect to RO, NF allowed roughly 20% decrease of the driving pressure at the expense of only 5% drop of rejection rate. Both NF and RO permeates at optimal operating transmembrane pressures respect environmental regulations for reject streams discharge into the environment.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.185-190
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• 2012

Rejection characteristics of perchlorate ($ClO_4^-$) were examined for commercially available reverse osmosis (RO) and nanofiltration (NF) membranes. A bench-scale dead-end stirred-cell filtration system was employed to determine the toxic ion rejection and the membrane flux. Model water solutions were used to prepare $ClO_4^-$ solutions (approximately, $1,000{\mu}g/L$) in the presence of background salts (NaCl, $Na_2SO_4$, and $CaCl_2$) at various pH values (3.5, 7, and 9.5) and solution ionic strengths (0.001, 0.01, and 0.01 M NaCl) in the presence of natural organic matter (NOM). Rejection by the membranes increased with increasing solution pH owing to increasingly negative membrane charge. In addition, the rejection of the target ion by the membranes increased with increasing solution ionic strength. The rejection of $ClO_4^-$ was consistently higher for the RO membrane than for the NF membrane and $ClO_4^-$ rejection followed the order $CaCl_2$ < NaCl < $Na_2SO_4$ at conditions of constant pH and ionic strength for both the RO and NF membranes. The possible influence of NOM on $ClO_4^-$ rejection by the membranes was also explored.