• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.155-163
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• 2019

The roles of polypropylene (PP) beads and pH on membrane fouling and treatment efficiency were investigated in a hybrid advanced water treatment process of tubular carbon fiber membranes (ultrafiltration (UF) or microfiltration (MF)) and PP beads. The synthetic feed including humic acid and kaolin flowed inside the membrane, and the permeated contacted the PP beads fluidized in the space between the membrane and the module with UV irradiation and periodic water back-flushing. In the hybrid process of UF ($0.05{\mu}m$) and PP beads, final resistance of membrane fouling ($R_f$) after 180 min increased as PP beads increased. The turbidity treatment efficiency was the maximum at 30 g/L; however, that of dissolved organic matters (DOM) showed the highest at PP beads 50 g/L. The $R_f$ strengthened as pH of feed increased. It means that the membrane fouling could be inhibited at low alkali condition. The treatment efficiency of turbidity was almost constant independent of pH; however, that of DOM showed the maximum at pH 5. For MF ($0.1{\mu}m$), the final $R_f$ was the minimum at PP beads 40 g/L. The treatment efficiencies of turbidity and DOM were the maximum at PP beads 10 g/L.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.44-53
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• 2011

Membrane bio-reactor (MBR) has several advantages over the conventional activated sludge process, including a high biomass, low sludge production, and better permeate quality. Therefore, the MBR have gained popularity for municipal and industrial wastewater treatment. However the MBR usually were used for sewage and low streng th wastewater treatment because of membrane fouling problem and limitation of oxygen transfer into biomass. In this study, the hybrid process combining MBR and pure oxygen was tested for high strength organic wastewater treatment in the COD loading range from 2 to $10kgCOD/m^3{\cdot}day$. The hybrid process, membrane coupled pure oxygen high compact reactor (MPHCR), had been operated for one year and operation parameters, the effect of COD loading, MLSS concentration and the location of membrane module were studied for membrane fouling characteristic. Also membrane resistance test and the component of foulant was analyzed to investigate what is specific foulant in the MBR.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.13-22
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• 2015

The combined impact of Dissolved Organic Matter (DOM) fouling and inorganic ($CaSO_4,Ca_3(PO_4)_2$) scaling on the retention of TNT (2, 4, 6-Trinitrotoluene), RDX (Hexahydro-1, 3, 5-trinitro-1, 3, 5-triazine) and HMX (1, 3, 5, 7-Tetranitro-1, 3, 5, 7-tetrazocane) explosive contaminants by nano-filtration membrane were studied, since organic fouling and salt scaling are the major limitations for membrane filtration. Results reported here indicate that DOM fouling layer with a humic acid does not necessarily lead to an immediate loss of permeate flux but can result in a severe impact on the flux loss when both humic acid and inorganic scaltants were presented simultaneously. The $Ca_3(PO_4)_2$ mixed with humic acid showd most sever flux loss (42%) compared to that of only humic acid presence (8%). It could be a result that the scaling formation of the NF membrane was dominated by cake layer formation of DOM and it was along with pore blocking by the formation of crystals inside the porous active matrix of the NF membrane. In addition, these results indicated that the membrane selectivity of the explosives retention trended correlated with respect to increasing explosives size (listed by MW) based on greater steric interactions and followed the order (MW, g $mol^{-1}$; removal, %): HMX (296.15; 83%) ${\gg}$ RDX (222.12; 49%) ≋ TNT (227.13; 32%). Because the scaling and fouling layer could lead to a additional cake-enhanced concentration polarisation effect, the retention of explosives with the presence of humic acid in the feed solution and inorganic scaling formation on top of an organic fouling layer do not differ substantially retention from that of pure DI feed and NaCl solution.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.34 no.9
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• pp.637-643
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• 2012

This study was carried out to investigate how reversible and irreversible fouling were distributed in the filtration using ceramic membrane of 300 kDa pore size for secondary effluent of wastewater. It was performed by calculating fouling as numerical method for diverse TMPs and measured F-EEM and SEC for raw water, treated water and backwashed water. Water quality was also checked to know whether treated water quality was stable or not. The results showed that reversible fouling formation was increased when lower TMP was applied and it is caused by protein like organic matters having higher molecular weights. The secondary wastewater effluent had diverse molecular weight materials, especially contaminants lower than 0.5 kDa and bigger than 12 kDa. Decreasing TMP induced contaminants above 12 kDa and below 1 kDa to become reversible fouling.

• Clean Technology
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.57-67
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• 2005

Epoxy resins are produced by the dehydro condensated reaction with ECH (Epichlorohydrin) and BPA(Bisphenol-A) as raw reactants under sodium hydroxide(NaOH) as a catalyst, and from this reaction, salted water named of brine, which contains ECH derivatives in condition of emulsion as likely as glycidol and polymer resins, is produced as an undesired side product. This brine water is alkaline wastewater and causes process fouling problems by plugging and chemically depositing polymer particles on the surface of inner wall of reactors and pipes, and decreases the biodegradable efficiency in the wastewater process. In this study, the optimization of coagulation and sediment reactions, using inorganic and organic polymer coagulants, were performed to remove the causes occurring the process fouling phenomena. And also, based on this study, the methodologies applicable to the commercial processes including economical analysis were presented.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.473-480
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• 2018

The effect of three iron-based adsorbents pre-depositing on ultrafiltration membrane for humic acid (HA) removal and membrane fouling was investigated. The result showed that pre-depositing adsorbents on membrane could not only reduce membrane fouling but also enhance HA removal. The flux was related to the adsorbent dosage and the optimal dosage for pre-deposition was $35.0g/m^2$. The dissolved organic carbon (DOC) removal of HA was 38.3%, 67.3% and 41.1% respectively when pre-deposited $35.0g/m^2$ $FeO_xH_y$, $MnFe_2O_4$ and $Fe_3O_4$ on membrane. Different adsorption effect of adsorbents on HA contributed to increasing of the flux at different level. Zeta potential of three adsorbents all decreased after adsorbed HA. The adsorption capacity of the three adsorbents was $FeO_xH_y$ > $MnFe_2O_4$ > $Fe_3O_4$. Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) measurement showed the thickness of pre-deposition layers formed by different adsorbents was different. The scanning electron microscope (SEM) detection showed the morphology and compactness of pre-deposition layers formed by different adsorbents was different.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.2314-2320
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• 2015

MBR (Membrane Bio-Reactor) process is known to consume enormous energy to control membrane fouling. To solve this problem, electro-coagulation technique has been applied to MBR. A series of electro-coagulation was applied to activated sludge suspension under different current density condition. After the electro-coagulations, membrane filtration of the activated sludge suspensions was conducted to investigate the effect of electro-coagulation on the fouling. As current density increased 10 to 40A/m2, the total fouling resistance (Rc+Rf) decreased from 18 to 79%, showing that the electro-coagulation improved the membrane filtration efficiency. Both the organic concentration in bulk and the particles size distribution were not nearly changed before and after the electro-coagulation. The enhanced filtration efficiency might be due to the aluminum hydroxide generated from chemical precipitation, which can be acted as a dynamic membrane preventing a deposition of foulants on membrane surfaces.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.137-147
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• 2020

A direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) was applied to treat strong nitrogenous wastewater of anaerobic digestion supernatant (ADS) and human urine (HU). The ammonia transfer was evaluated in terms of specific ammonia transfer (SAT) value, which is the ratio of total ammoniacal nitrogen divided by the amount of water transferred. The acidification resulted in low SAT values and high quality of produced water. The ammonia transfer control in the acidic condition was stronger for HU than ADS due to higher alkalinity (pH 8.8) and ammonia concentration (5700 mg-N/L) of HU. Acidified HU at pH 4 exhibited a SAT value of 1.64 × 10^-5, which was significantly smaller than the SAT value of 3.00 × 10^-3 for the original HU. The low pH enhanced the water flux for ADS, but HU showed a steep decrease in water flux due to enhanced fouling. It was considered that the fouling intensity in acidic conditions depends on the characteristics of the wastewater source. The major foulants on the MD membrane were NaCl, CaCO₃ and CuSO₄ as recognized by the SEM-EDS. Acidified ADS and HU at pH 4 showed relatively high N content of 8.18 % and 28.03 %, respectively, as organic fouling.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.31-38
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• 2014

Rainwater harvesting is a process by which rainwater collected from rooftop or other catchment is purified so that the water can be directly or indirectly used by human beings for beneficial uses. As rainwater is increasingly considered for high quality purposes, membranes have gained an important place in rainwater treatment. It has advantages such as the production of high quality water, small footprint, and affordable energy consumption. Nevertheless, membrane fouling is regarded as a serious problem similar to the cases of water treatment and wastewater reclamation. In this study, we applied microfiltration (MF) membranes for rainwater treatment. In addition, a low pressure ultraviolet (UV) process was also use as a pretreatment to control notonly. To quantify the effect of UV on organic matters, both total organic carbon (TOC) and UV absorbance (UVA) were measured. Moreover, the effect of UV pretreatment on membrane fouling was investigated. Experimental results indicated that the pretreatment of membranes using LPUV was effective to control fouling of MF membranes only when the rainwater was contaminated by algae. This was attributed the reduction and modification of organics after UV treatments. It is likely that the UV/MF process is a promising option for water treatment in decentralized water treatment such as micro water grid systems.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.64-78
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• 2011

Surface of hydrophobic polyethylene membrane was modified to become hydrophilic by ion beam irradiation. Submerged membrane filtration reactors contained pristine membrane or surface-modified membrane and the influent to reactors was pickled radish wastewater. The objectives of this study was to investigate the variation of flux and pressure and the characteristics of pollutant removal such as organics, suspended solids and nutrients with time. The result of experiments using intermittent pristine membrane showed the occurrence of severe fouling by increasing permeate pressure rapidly in case of pickled radish wastewater but in synthetic wastewater, this phenomenon was not occurred. In experiments of variation flux after chemical cleaning and water cleaning in pristine membrane, chemical cleaning must be necessary for renewals of pollutant membrane. Performance of intermittent operation is higher than that of continuous operation. Reaching fouling time in the case of surface-modified membrane is 6 times as long as pristine membrane. According this reason, replacement expense of surface-modified membrane could be 1/6 of that of pristine membrane. Effluent from this process was relatively good water quality and performance in the removal efficiency of SS, nitrogen and phosphorus was particularly higher.