• Membrane Journal
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.46-54
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• 2011

In this study, combined effect of airflow rate, $TiO_2$ concentration, solution pH and $Ca^{+2}$ addition on HA (humic acid) fouling in submerged, photocatalytic hollow-fiber microfiltraiton was investigated systematically. Results showed that UV irradiation alone without $TiO_2$ nanoparticles could reduce HA fouling by 40% higher than the fouling obtained without UV irradiation. Compared to the HA fouling without UV irradiation and $TiO_2$ nanoparticles, the HA fouling reduction was about 25% higher only after the addition of $TiO_2$ nanoparticles. Both adsorptive and hydrophilic properties of $TiO_2$ nanoparticles for the HA can be involved in mitigating membrane fouling. It was also found that the aeration itself had lowest effect on fouling mitigation while the HA fouling was affected significantly by solution pH. Transient behavior of zeta potential at different solution pHs suggested that electrostatic interactions between HA and $TiO_2$ nanoparticles should improve photocatalytic efficiency on HA fouling. $TiO_2$ concentration was observed to be more important factor than airflow rate to reduce HA fouling, implying that surface reactivity on $TiO_2$ naoparticles should be important fouling mitigation mechanisms in submerged, photocatalyic microfiltraiton. This was further supported by investigating the effect of $Ca^{+2}$ addition on fouling mitigation. At higher pH (= 10), addition of $Ca^{+2}$ can play an important role in bridging between HA and $TiO_2$ nanoparticles and increasing surface reactivity on nanoparticles, thereby reducing membrane fouling.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.27 no.12
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• pp.1772-1780
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• 2003

An optimal soot blowing system has been developed for an optimal operation of power utility boilers by both minimization of the use of steam and the number of soot blowers worked during soot blowing. Traditionally, the soot blowing system has been operated manually by operators. However, it causes the reduction of power and thermal performance degradation because all soot blowers installed in the plant should be worked simultaneously even there are lots of tubes those are not contaminated by slagging or fouling. Heat transfer area is divided into four groups, furnace, convection area including superheater, reheater and economizer, and air preheater in the present study. The condition of cleanness of the tubes is calculated by several parameters obtained by sensors. Then, a part of soot blowers works automatically where boiler tubes are contaminated. This system has been applied in a practical power plant. Therefore, comparison has been done between this system and manual operation and the results are discussed.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.431-437
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• 2014

To overcome the flux reduction due to the fouling by adsorption of foulants onto the porous hydrophobic polyethylene membrane surface, the oxyflorination was introduced to hydrophilize the hydrophobic membranes. After the hydrophilization through oxyfluorination, the contact angle decreased from $93^{\circ}$ to $50^{\circ}$ while the water flux increased to 60%. It was considered that for the model foulants dissolved in water, such as albumin (form bovine serum, BSA), humic acid sodium salt (HA), and alginic acid sodium salt (SA), the flux was enhanced since the adsorbed foulants decreased by the oxyfluorination. Particularly, it was obtained that the water flux was over twice more than the untreated polyethylene membrane in case of SA foulant.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.360-366
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• 2011

The effect of cross-flow velocity and transmembrane pressure (TMP) on membrane fouling was observed from pilot-scale operation of thermophilic anaerobic membrane bioreactor (AnMBR) treating food waste leachate. It was found that fouling rate was reduced significantly as cross-flow velocity increased at constant TMP mode of operation while this effectiveness was more pronounced at lower TMP. Higher TMP resulted in less permeable fouling layer possibly due to compressibility of foulant material on membrane surface. Particle sizes of membrane concentrate ranged from 10 to $100{\mu}m$, implying that shear-induced diffusion enhance back transport of these particle sizes away from the membrane effectively. From the continuous operation of AnMBR, it was confirmed that shear rate played an important role in the reduction of membrane fouling. Membrane autopsy works at the end of operation of AnMBR showed clearly that both organic and inorganic fouling were significant on membrane surface. Surface shear by cross-flow velocity was expected to be less effective to remove irreversible fouling which can be mainly caused by the adsorption of organic colloidal materials into membrane pores.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.483-491
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• 1994

It is known that a key limiting factor to the use of ultrafiltration membranes is that of membrane fouling, which has been a major cause of permeate flux reduction. In this work, the effects of several factors (operating time, protein concentration, temperature and pH, etc.) influencing permeate flux during ultrafiltration of gelatin, casein and bovine serum albumin using a hollow fiber membrane(M. W. 10,000 cut off) reactor have been examined. The permeate flux of gelatin solution was maintained almost constant during the operation up to 6 hours, but those of casein and albumin solutions were decreased to 50% and 43% of initial value after an operation time of 60min. The permeate flux with increasing concentration and temperature of protein solutions increased, but the permeate flux showed a minimum value near the isoelectric point of proteins. The permeate fluxes of protein solution were enhanced by a temperature increase and pH control. Also, it is proposed that fouling can be decreased by the pretreatment of insoluble proteins with enzymes.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.91-98
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• 2006

There is a possibility of the production of the air bubbles in membrane pores due to the reduction in pressure during membrane filtration. The effect of fine air bubbles from dissolved gases on microfiltration was investigated in the submerged membrane bio-reactor (SMBR). The $R_{air}$ (air bubble resistance) was defined as the filtration resistance due to the air bubbles formed from the gasification of dissolved gases. From the results of filtration tests using pure water with changes in the dissolved oxygen concentration, the air bubbles from dissolved gases were confirmed to act as a foulant and; thus, increase the filtration resistance. The standard pore blocking and cake filtration models, SPBM and CFM, respectively, were applied to investigate the mechanism of air bubble fouling on a hollow fiber membrane. However, the application of the SPBM and CFM were limited in explaining the mechanism due to the properties of air bubble. With a simple comparison of the different filtration resistances, the $R_{air}$ portion was below 1% of the total filtration resistance during sludge filtration. Therefore, the air bubbles from dissolved gases would only be a minor foulant in the SMBR. However, under the conditions of a high gasification rate from dissolved gases, the effect of air bubble fouling should be considered in microfiltration.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.1 no.4
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• pp.297-316
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• 2010

Membrane fouling is one of the major operational concerns of membrane processes which results in loss of productivity. This paper investigates the ultrafiltration (UF) results of synthetic oil-in-water (o/w) emulsion using flat sheets of polysulfone (PSf) membrane synthesized with four different compositions. The aim is to identify the mechanisms responsible for the observed permeate flux reduction with time for different PSf membranes. The experiments were carried out at four transmembrane pressures i.e., 68.9 kPa, 103.4 kPa, 137.9 kPa and 172.4 kPa. Three initial oil concentrations i.e., 75 $mgL^{-1}$, 100 $mgL^{-1}$ and 200 $mgL^{-1}$ were considered. The resistance-in-series (RIS) model was applied to interpret the data and on that basis, the individual resistances were evaluated. The significances of these resistances were studied in relation to parameters, namely, transmembrane pressure and initial oil concentration. The total resistance to permeate flow is found to increase with increase in both transmembrane pressure and initial oil concentration while for higher oil concentration, resistance due to concentration polarization is found to be the prevailing resistance. The applicability of the constant pressure filtration models to the experimental data was also tested to explain the blocking process. The study shows that intermediate pore blocking is the dominant mechanism at the initial period of UF while in the later period, the fouling process is found to approach cake filtration like mechanism. However, the duration of pore blocking mechanism is different for different membranes depending on their morphological and permeation properties.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.323-329
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• 2000

The coupling of an activated sludge reactor with a membrane unit, i.e., Membrane Coupled Activated Sludge (MCAS) system offers several advantages over conventional process. But the major hurdle in the extensive use of this process is the continuous reduction of permeation flux caused by membrane fouling. The aim of this study is to investigate membrane fouling characteristics in the MCAS process. During crossflow ultrafiltration(CFUF) of activated sludge, floc size decreased abruptly at the beginning of operation and thereafter decreased continuously and gradually. The floc size changed from 100~200 to $6{\sim}8{\mu}m$ depending on recirculation velocity. This floc breakage played a key role in rapid increase of $R_c$(cake layer resistance), which led to flux decline. The floc breakage stimulated biomass to release EPS(Extracellular Polymeric Substance) which has been known to be one of the major membrane foul-ants. The amounts of EPS before and after CFUF were 266 and 405(VS mg/MLSS g), respectively. The rise up of EPS concentration was another factor affecting flux decline in MCAS system.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.161-168
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• 2017

Microfiltration (MF) and Ultrafiltration (UF) membrane processes capable of producing highly purified water have been extensively applied as a pretreatment process in the wastewater reuse field with the improvement of membrane properties and resistance, development of operating protocols, and improvement of technologies of backwashing and physicochemical cleaning, and improvement of scale and antifoulants. However, despite of the development of membrane production and process technologies, fouling still remains unresolved. This study confirmed that foulants such as polysaccharides, proteins and humic substances existed in final treated effluent (secondary effluent) by fluorescence excitation emission matrix (FEEM) and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis. In addition, when constructing ozone oxidation and coagulation processes as a hybrid process, the removal efficiency was 5.8%, 6.9%, 5.9%, and 28.2% higher than that of the single process using coagulation in turbidity, color, dissolved organic carbon (DOC), and UV254, respectively. The reversible and irreversible resistances in applying the hybrid process consisting of ozone oxidation and coagulation processes were lower than those in applying ozone oxidation and coagulation processes separately in UF membrane process. Therefore, it is considered possible to apply ozonation/coagulation as a pretreatment process for stable wastewater reuse by and then contributing to the reduction of fouling when calculating the optimal conditions for ozone oxidation and coagulation and then to applying them to membrane processes.

• 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.