• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.45-51
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• 2016

Membrane bioreactor (MBR) and reverse osmosis (RO) membrane system was applied to the treatment and reclamation of textile wastewater in Thailand. An experiment was carried out to determine the fouling behavior and effect of anti-scalant and biocide addition to flux decline and its recovery through chemical cleaning. The RO unit was operated for one month after which the fouled membranes were cleaned by sequential chemical cleaning method. RO flux was found rapidly declined during initial period and only slightly decreased further in long-term operation. The main foulants were organic compounds and thus sequential cleaning using alkaline solution followed by acid solution was found to be the most effective method. The provision of anti-scalant and biocide in feed-water could not prevent deposition of foulant on the membrane surface but helped improving the membrane cleaning efficiencies.

• 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.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.481-487
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• 2018

Membrane clogging or fouling of the membrane caused by organic, inorganic, and biological on the surface is one of the main obstacles to achieve high flux over a long period of the membrane filtration process. So researchers have been many attempts to reduce membrane fouling and found that there is a close relationship between membrane surface hydrophilicity and membrane fouling, such that the same conditions, a greater hydrophilicity were less prone to fouling. Nanotechnology in the past decade is provided numerous opportunities to examine the effects of metal nanoparticles on the both hydrophilic and antibacterial properties of the membrane. In the present study the improvement of hydrophilic and antimicrobial properties of the membrane was evaluated by adding nanoparticles of titanium dioxide and copper oxide. For this purpose, 4% copper oxide and titanium dioxide nanoparticles with a ratio of 0, 30, 50, and 70% of copper oxide added to the polymeric membrane and compare to the pure polymeric membrane. Comparison experiments were performed on E. coli PTCC1998 in two ways disc and tube and also to evaluate membrane hydrophilic by measuring the contact angle and diameter of pores and analysis point SEM has been made. The results show that the membrane-containing nanoparticle has antibacterial properties and its impact by increasing the percentage of copper oxide nanoparticles increases.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.161-172
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• 2015

Forward osmosis (FO) is an emerging membrane technology with potential applications in desalination and wastewater reclamation. The osmotic pressure gradient across the FO membrane is used to generate water flux. In this study, flux performance and foulant deposition on the FO membrane were systematically investigated with a co-current cross-flow membrane system. Sodium alginate (SA), bovine serum albumin (BSA) and tannic acid (TA) were used as model foulants. Organics adsorbed on the membrane were peeled off via oscillation and characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). When an initial flux of $8.42L/m^2h$ was applied, both flux reduction and foulant deposition were slight for the feed solution containing BSA and TA. In comparison, flux reduction and foulant deposition were much more severe for the feed solution containing SA, as a distinct SA cake-layer was formed on the membrane surface and played a crucial role in membrane fouling. In addition, as the initial SA concentration increased in FS, the thickness of the cake-layer increased remarkably, and the membrane fouling became more severe.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.159-168
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• 2002

A lab-scale Reverse Osmosis(RO) membrane reactor was installed to investigate the membrane permeability, characteristics of membrane fouling at each conditions, and performance of elimination at different trans-membrane pressure(TMP) in the liquid fertilizer accumulated system. Experimental setup was divided to three different TMP conditions. As a result of experiment, permeability of RO membrane was proportional to the increase of TMP and temperature. After experiment was completed, two types chemical cleaning(remove the organic foulant and inorganic foulant) was done, and recover rate of permeability was each 99.8, 99.7 and 99.7%, respectively. From this experimental data, membrane fouling could be determined that the most of it was recoverable in this system, and major reason of fouling was concentration polarization. Elimination rate of solute substance in the liquid fertilizer indicated very stable(above 99%), except ammonia nitrogen, and the most stable elimination rate was investigated at the highest TMP condition (Run 3).

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.605-612
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• 2005

The objective of this study was to evaluate the factors affecting the optimization of coagulation hybrid UF membrane processes for the reuse of secondary effluent from sewage treatment plant. The experimental results obtained from the UF membrane process showed that organic colloids in the size range of $0.2{\mu}m{\sim}1.0{\mu}m$ caused the most substantial influence on the fouling of UF membrane. When using a coagulation pretreatment to UF membrane, alum dosage of 50mg/L resulted in the least reduction in membrane permeate flux. Also, for the rapid mixing process, in-line mixer type was more efficient for organic removal than back mixer type. Therefore, it may be concluded that coagulation-UF hybrid membrane process comparing to UF alone process showed not only higher removal efficiency of organic matter, but also substantial improvement of permeate flux of UF membrane.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.45 no.5
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• pp.500-505
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• 2007

The objectives of this research were to (1) identify the membrane fouling potential due to different fractions of NOM (2) correlate the physicochemical properties of NOM and membranes with the adsorption of humic substances on membrane (4) find out the effect of membrane physical and chemical washing according to membrane material. The static adsorption test and adsorption test showed that hydrophobic organics adsorbed much more quickly than hydrophilic organics. In case of the effect of membrane properties on the adsorption of organic fractions, the adsorption rate ratio(a) of hydrophobic membrane (0.016, 0.077) was greater than that of hydrophilic membrane (0.010, 0.033) regardless of the kind of organic fractions. This suggests that the UF membrane fouling were occurred mainly by internal pore size decreasing due to adsorption of organic into pore surface for hydrophobic membrane, and by sieving of organics and forming a gel layer on the membrane surface for hydrophilic membrane. In conclusion, the decrease in the pore volume, which was caused by the organic adsorption into the internal pore, was greater with the hydrophobic membrane than with the hydrophilic membrane. In case of the effect of membrane properties on permeate flux, the rate of flux decline for the hydrophobic membrane was significantly greater than that for the hydrophilic membrane.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.289-297
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• 2004

In this study, membranes were coupled to a sequencing batch reactor for simultaneous removal of organic matter and nitrogen, and the influences of MLSS (mixed liquor suspended solid) concentration and the sludge loading rate on membrane fouling and bioactivity were investigated. The amount of membrane fouling slightly increased with MLSS concentration at both non-aeration and aeration conditions, but effect of MLSS concentration was more significant at aeration condition. Although the effect of MLSS concentration on membrane fouling was found to be insignificant at low concentration level, extremely low sludge loading, which were generated by the maintenance of large amount of biomass in the reactor, caused severe membrane fouling, and air scouring effect decreased significantly in this condition. Specific bioactivity was constantly reduced as sludge loading rate decreased. In spite of high MLSS concentration over 17,000 mg/L, the activity of the reactor decreased at extremely low sludge loading rate presumably due to the lower oxygen transfer and the competition of biomass to deficient substrate.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.163-170
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• 2011

Membrane fouling control in water treatment may be the main obstacle for wider implementation and lower cost. A novel fluorescent spectroscope sensor device for membrane fouling integrity monitoring has been developed and evaluated in this study. PSf membranes for water treatment has been fabricated with three types of organic fluorescent materials, OB, FP, KCB. The fluorescent signal from membrane surface was analyzed throughout the filtration process. It was found that the fluorescent signal due to the membrane fouling decreased and the developed device is reliable for membrane fouling monitoring.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.639-645
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• 2008

The objectives of this research are to (1) observe changes in particle size distribution due to formation of microflocs during coagulation process (2) identify the membrane fouling potential on cross flow system (3) investigate the mechanism of membrane fouling. The rate of flux decline for the hydrophobic membrane was significantly greater than for the hydrophilic membrane, regardless of pretreatment conditions. The pretreatment of the raw water significantly reduced the fouling of the UF membrane. Also, the rate of flux decline for the hydrophobic membrane was considerably greater than for the hydrophilic membrane. Applying coagulation process before membrane filtration showed not only reducing membrane fouling, but also improving the removal of dissolved organic materials that might otherwise not be removed by the membrane. That is, during the mixing period, substantial changes in particle size distribution occurred under rapid and slow mixing condition due to the simultaneous formation of microflocs and NOM precipitates. Therefore, combined pretreatment using coagulation not only improved dissolved organics removal efficiency but also flux recovery efficiency.