• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.323-331
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• 2020

With the increasing demand on reverse osmosis (RO) membranes for water purification worldwide, the number of disposed membrane elements is expected to increase accordingly. Thus, recycling and reuse of end-of-life RO membranes should be a global environmental action. In this work, we aim to reuse the spent RO membrane for nanofiltration (NF) and ultrafiltration (UF) process by subjecting the spent membrane to solvent and oxidizing solution treatment, respectively. Our results showed that solvent-treated RO membrane could perform as good as commercial NF membrane by achieving similar separation efficiencies, but with reduced water permeability due to membrane surface fouling. By degrading the polyamide layer of RO membrane, the transformed membrane could achieve high water permeability (85.6 L/㎡.h.bar) and excellent rejection against macromolecules (at least 87.4%), suggesting its reuse potential as UF membrane. More importantly, our findings showed that in-situ transformation on the spent RO membrane using solvent and oxidizing solution could be safely conducted as the properties of the entire spiral wound element did not show significant changes upon prolonged exposure of these two solutions. Our findings are important to open up new possibilities for the discarded RO membranes for reuse in NF and UF process, prolonging the lifespan of spent membranes and promoting the sustainability of the membrane process.

• Proceedings of the KAIS Fall Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.272-273
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• 2005

분리막 기술은 탁월한 처리효율뿐 아니라 안정적으로 용수를 생산할 수 있는 장점이 있기 때문에 용수의 생산을 전통적인 수처리 (Conventional water treatment) 공정에서 역삼투 공정(Reverse Osmosis) 및 나노여과 (Nanofiltration)와 같은 분리막 기술을 활용하는 공정으로 변환하는 추세에 있다. 그러나 분리막 공정은 항상 막오염 현상이 문제점으로 지목되고 있기 때문에 막오염 제어 기술의 확보가 시급한 실정이다. 따라서 본 연구에서는 화학물질의 사용에 따른 2차 환경오염 문제가 발생하는 화학약품이나 물리적인 세정이 아닌 고전압 임펄스 (HVI, High Voltage Impulse) 장치를 이용하여 막오염의 근본적인 문제를 제어하려 한다.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.235-242
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• 2012

Ammonium perchlorate (AP) is primarily derived from the process of liquid incineration treatment when dismantling a solid rocket propellant. A series of batch dead-end nanofiltration (NF) and reverse osmosis (RO) membrane experiments were conducted to explore the retention mechanisms of AP under various hydrodynamic and solution conditions. Low levels of silicate type of siloxane had been detected through the GC/MS and FTIR analysis of liquid solutions extracted from solid ammonium perchlorate composite propellant (APCP). It is indicated that NF/RO membranes fouling in the presence of APCP was mainly attributed to the AP interactions because the concentration of silicate type of siloxane was negligible compared to that of AP. The osmotic pressure of AP was presumably resulted in the flux declines ranging from 13 to 17% in the case of the application of low-pressure (551 and 896 kPa for NF and RO) compared to those in application of high-pressure. The retention of AP by NF/RO membranes significantly varied from approximately 10 to 70% for NF and 26 to 87% for RO, depending on the operating and solution water chemistry conditions. The results suggested that retention efficiency of AP was fairly increased by reducing concentration polarization (i.e. application of low-pressure and stirring speed of 600 rpm) and increasing the pH of a solution. The result of this study was also consistent with the previous modeling of 'solute mass transfer of NF/RO membranes' and demonstrated that hydrodynamic and solution water chemistry conditions are to be a key factor in the retention of AP by NF/RO membranes.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.158-172
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• 2020

In the aspect of saving energy and water, facilitating the separation membrane for the water treatment has been rising recently as one of the possible solutions. However, microbial biofouling effect is the biggest obstacle that hinders reaching higher permeability over a prolonged period of nanofiltration operation. To solve this problem and fully utilize the filtration membranes with enhanced performance, largely two kinds of solutions are studied and the first and the most commonly mentioned type is the one using the silver nanoparticles. Since silver nanoparticles are important to be well tailored on membrane surface, various methods have been applied and suggested. Using silver nanoparticles however also has the drawbacks or possible toxicity risks, raising the need for other types of utilizing non silver particles to functionalize the membrane, such as copper, graphene or zinc oxides, and amine moieties. Each attempt included in either kind has produced some notable results in killing, preventing, or repelling the bacteria while at the same time, left some unsolved points to be evaluated. In this review, the effects of metal nanoparticles and other materials on the antifouling properties of water treatment membranes are summarized.