• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
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• 1996.06a
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• pp.33-89
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• 1996

History of Membrane Process Development 1920 : microfiltration : Zsigmondy 1930 : ultrafiltration 1950 : hemodialysis : Kolff 1955 : electrodialysis 1960 : reverse osmosis : Loeb, sourirajan 1960 : ultrafiltration 1979 : gas separation : Henis, Tripodi 1982 : pervaporation : Tusel

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.141-160
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• 2015

This study aims to investigate the impacts of chemical cleaning on the performance of a reverse osmosis membrane. Chemicals used for simulating membrane cleaning include a surfactant (sodium dodecyl sulfate, SDS), a chelating agent (ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid, EDTA), and two proprietary cleaning formulations namely MC3 and MC11. The impact of sequential exposure to multiple membrane cleaning solutions was also examined. Water permeability and the rejection of boron and sodium were investigated under various water fluxes, temperatures and feedwater pH. Changes in the membrane performance were systematically explained based on the changes in the charge density, hydrophobicity and chemical structure of the membrane surface. The experimental results show that membrane cleaning can significantly alter the hydrophobicity and water permeability of the membrane; however, its impacts on the rejections of boron and sodium are marginal. Although the presence of surfactant or chelating agent may cause decreases in the rejection, solution pH is the key factor responsible for the loss of membrane separation and changes in the surface properties. The impact of solution pH on the water permeability can be reversed by applying a subsequent cleaning with the opposite pH condition. Nevertheless, the impacts of solution pH on boron and sodium rejections are irreversible in most cases.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.141-147
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• 2010

The objective of this study was to assess the biofouling characteristics of the Bacillus biofilm formed on reverse osmosis (RO) membranes. For the study, a sporogenic Bacillus sp. was isolated from the seawater intake to a RO process, with two distinct sets of experiments performed to grow the Bacillus biofilm on the RO membrane using a lab-scale crossflow membrane test unit. Two operational feds were used, 9 L sterile-filtered seawater and 109 Bacillus cells, with flow rates of 1 L/min, and a constant 800 psi-pressure and pH 7.6. From the results, the membrane with more fouling, in which the observed permeate flux decreased to 33% of its initial value, showed about 10 and 100 times greater extracellular polymeric substances and spoOA genes expressions, respectively, than the those of the less fouled membrane (flux declined to 20% of its initial value). Interestingly; however, the number of culturable Bacillus sp. in the more fouled membrane was about 10 times less than that of the less fouled membrane. This indicated that while the number of Bacillus had less relevance with respect to the extent of biofouling, the activation of the genes of interest, which is initiative of biofilm development, had a more positive effect on biofouling than the mass of an individual Bacillus bacterium.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.235-240
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• 2010

The aim of this paper is to evaluate and compare the performances of forward osmosis (FO) membranes using different materials. The FO membranes were synthesized using interfacial polymerization method on hydrophobic polysulfone (PSf) and relatively hydrophilic polyethersulfone (PES) supports. The FO performance such as flux and back diffusion was measured. The resulting fluxes of PSf and PES FO membranes were $4.3\;L/m^2hr$ and $17.8\;L/m^2hr$, respectively. The flux of the PES FO membrane was higher than that of the PSf FO membrane. The results indicated that hydrophillictity of the support membrane is important for increasing flux in FO process. Moreover, with decreasing the support layer thickness, flux increased considerably.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.169-179
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• 2018

The purposes of this paper were to improve both fouling and chlorine resistance by increasing the hydrophilicity of the reverse osmosis membrane. In order to improve chlorine resistance, the surface of RO membrane was activated by ultraviolet irradiation, and then it was modified by the sol-gel method using Octyltriethoxysilane (OcTES) such as the silane coupling agent to low sensitivity to chlorine, thereby the polyamide active layer was protected and chlorine resistance was improved. In addition, polyglycerol polyglycidyl ether (PGPE) and sorbitol polyglycidyl ether (SPE) coating with different number of epoxides, ring opening reaction of epoxide improved the anti-fouling resistance. The surface modification condition was optimized by FT-IR, XPS, and contact angle analysis. As a result, the permeability reduction rate of the silane-epoxy modified membrane after the fouling test was decreased about 1.5 times as compared with that of the commercial membrane. And the salt rejection was maintained over 90% at $20,000ppm{\times}hr$ even after chlorine resistance test.

• 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 Journal
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.96-104
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• 2019

The purpose of this paper is whether or not the in-situ restoration of the reverse osmosis (RO) membranes which its membrane function is lost is possible. The damaged RO membranes are double coated through the salting-out method by the poly(styrene sulfonic acid) sodium salt as the cationic exchange polymer and the polyethyleneimine as the anionic exchange polymer and also conducted the opposite order of the coating materials. And according to the concentration, time and ionic strength, the flux and rejection are measured for the coated membranes. Then the best coating condition is to apply for the RO membrane module of the household water purifier to know the possibility of the in-situ restoration for the commercial module. When the condition of the PEI 30,000 ppm (IS = 0.1)/PSSA 20,000 ppm (IS = 0.7) is applied, the rejection was enhance from 69% for the damaged module to 86% (90% for the pristine module).

• Membrane Journal
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.157-168
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• 2018

Potassium tannate (TA-K), which is prepared by base treatment of the bio-renewable tannic acid (TA), was evaluated for its potential application as a draw solute for water purification by forward osmosis. The forward osmosis and recovery properties of TA-K were systematically investigated. In the application of forward osmosis through the active layer facing feed solution (AL-FS) method, the water flux of TA-K draw solution was significantly higher than that of the TA draw solution, while that of the latter was not identified. At a low concentration of 100 mM, the osmotic pressure (1,135 mOsmol/kg) of the TA-K draw solution was approximately 6.5 times that (173 mOsmol/kg) of the NaCl draw solution. Furthermore, the water flux and specific salt flux (6.14 LMH, 1.26 g/L) of the TA-K draw solution at 100 mM were approximately 2.5 and 0.5 times those of the NaCl draw solution (2.46 LMH, 2.63 g/L) at the same concentration, respectively. For reuse, TA-K was precipitated by using a metal ion and recovered through membrane filtration. This study demonstrates the applicability of a phytochemical material as a draw solute for forward osmosis.

• Transactions of the KSME C: Technology and Education
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.59-68
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• 2013

In the present study, sea water reverse osmosis desalination system was composed with an ultra-filtration membrane as a pre-treatment. Sea water was induced into the pre-treatment composed with an auto-screen filter and an ultra-filtration membrane. It was proved that the permeate of the pre-treatment was adequate for reverse osmosis desalination system by measuring the $SDI_{15}$ and the turbidity. Feed salinities was changed by mixing the brine and the permeate. Inlet salinities effected the performances of sea water reverse osmosis desalination system in a large amount such as the salt rejection, the recovery ratio, the pressure, the product salinity. Energy consumptions per the ton of the product were almost linearly increased with the inlet salinities.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.15-29
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• 2014

Reverse Osmosis (RO) desalination has gained wide and increasing acceptance around the world as a straightforward undertaking to alleviate the alarming water crisis. An enhanced monitoring of the quality of the water feeding in seawater RO (SWRO) plant through the application of an effective pretreatment option is one of the keys to the success of RO technology in desalination plants. Over the past 10 years, advances in ultrafiltration (UF) membrane technologies in application for water and wastewater treatment have prompted an impetus for using membrane pretreatment in seawater desalination plants. By integrating SWRO plant with UF pretreatment, the rate of membrane fouling can be significantly reduced and thus extend the life of RO membrane. With the growing importance and significant advances attained in UF pretreatment, this review presents an overview of UF pretreatment in SWRO plants. The advantages offered by UF as an alternative of pretreatment option are compared to the existing conventionally used technologies. The current progress made in the integration of SWRO with UF pretreatment is also highlighted. Finally, the recent advances pursued in UF technology is reviewed in order to provide an insight and hence path the way for the future development of this technology.