• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.387-394
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• 2019

Membrane distillation (MD) is one of the water treatment processes which involves the momentum, heat and mass transfer through channels and membrane. In this study, CFD modeling has been used to simulate the heat and mass transfer in the direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD). Also, the effect of operating parameters on the water flux is investigated. The result shows a good agreement with the experimental result. Results indicated that, while feed temperature is increasing in the feed side, water flux improves in the permeate side. Since higher velocity leads to the higher mixing and turbulence in the feed channel, water flux rises due to this increase in the feed velocity. Moreover, results revealed that temperature polarization coefficient is rising as flow rate (velocity) increases and it is decreasing while the feed temperature increases. Lastly, the thermal efficiency of direct contact membrane distillation is defined, and results confirm that thermal efficiency improves while feed temperature increases. Also, flow rate increment results in enhancement of thermal efficiency.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.613-623
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• 2017

We report the novel thin film composite RO membrane modified by graphene oxide. The thin film composite RO membrane was exposed to 2000 mg/l sodium hypochloride; thereafter it was subjected to different graphene oxide concentration ranging from 50 mg/l to 1000 mg/l in water. The resultant membrane was crosslinked with 5000 mg/l N-hydroxysuccinimide. The performance of different membranes were analysed by solute rejection and water-flux measurement. It was found that 100 mg/l graphene oxide exposure followed by 5000 mg/l N-hydroxysuccinimide treatment resulted in the membrane with the highest solute rejection of 97.78% and water-flux of 4.64 Liter per sqm per hour per bar g. The membranes were characterized by contact angle for hydrophilicity, scanning electron micrographs for surface morphology, energy dispersive X-Ray for chemical composition of the surface, Atomic force microscope for surface roughness, ATR-FTIR for chemical structure identification. It was found that the graphene oxide modified membrane increases the salt rejection performance after exposure to high-fouling water containing albumin. Highly hydrophilic, antifouling surface formation with the nanomaterial led to the improved membrane performance. Moreover, the protocol of incorporating nanomaterial by this post-treatment is simple and can be applied to any RO membrane after it is manufactured.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.193-207
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• 2016

Boron is one of the most problematic inorganic pollutants and is difficult to remove in water. Strict standards have been imposed for boron content in water because of their high toxicity at high concentrations. Technologies using membrane processes such as reverse osmosis (RO) and nanofiltration (NF) have increasingly been employed in many industrial sectors. In this work, removal of boron from model water solutions was investigated using polyamide reverse osmosis and nanofiltration membranes. RO-AG, RO-SG, NF-90 and NF-HL membranes were used to reduce the boron from model water at different operational conditions. To understand the boron separation properties a characterization of the four membranes was performed by determining the pure water permeability, surface charge and molecular weight cut-off. Thereafter, the effect of feed pressure, concentration, ionic strength, nature of ions in solution and pH on the rejection of boron were studied. The rejection of boron can reach up to 90% for the three membranes AG, SG and NF-90 at pH = 11. The Spiegler-Kedem model was applied to experimental results to determine the reflection coefficient of the membrane ${\sigma}$ and the solute permeability $P_s$.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.191-199
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• 2022

In industrial production, the development of traditional polyamide nanofiltration (NF) membrane was limited due to its poor oxidation resistance, complex preparation process and high cost. In this study, a composite NF membrane with high flux, high separation performance, high oxidation resistance and simple process preparation was prepared by the method of dilute solution dip coating. And the sulfonated polysulfone was used for dip coating. The results indicated that the concentration of glycerin, the pore size of the based membrane, the composition of the coating solution, and the post-treatment process had important effects on the structure and performance of the composite NF membrane. The composite NF membrane prepared without glycerol protecting based membrane had a low flux, when the concentration of glycerin increased from 5% to 15%, the pure water flux of the composite NF membrane increased from 46.4 LMH to 108.2 LMH, and the salt rejection rate did not change much. By optimizing the coating system, the rejection rate of Na₂SO₄ and PEG1000 was higher than 90%, the pure water flux was higher than 40 LMH (60psi), and it can withstand 20,000 ppm.h NaClO solution cleaning. When the post treatment processes was adjusted, the salt rejection rate of NaCl solution (250 ppm) reached 45.5%, and the flux reached 62.2 LMH.

• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
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• 1996.10a
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• pp.22-33
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• 1996

With the experience of the 1994 drought, and the shortage of water resources in Japan, it has been re-informed upon us ensure and maintain the stability of water resources. Accordingly, with each plant, a serious appraisal has begun looking at the re-use of waste water. Membrane technology is an important process for waste water recovery. Effluent kom waste water facilities changes the quality of water significantly. The conventional pre-treatment of RO is hard to supply good quality feed water to RO in the waste water recovery system. The microfiltration system as a pre-treatment of RO in the paper overcomes the fouling with the air backwash and is operated in direct flow mode at a low pressure producing a high flux. The paper will focus the waste water recovery using membrane technology and many examples will be given.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.216-223
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• 2012

The effect of water back-flushing period (FT) was investigated in hybrid process of carbon fiber microfiltration membrane and photocatalyst for advanced drinking water treatment in this study, and compared with the previous study using alumina ultrafiltration membrane. The FT was changed in the range of 2~10 min with fixed 10 sec of BT. Then, the FT effects on resistance of membrane fouling ($R_f$), permeate flux (J) and total permeate volume ($V_T$) were observed during total filtration time of 180 min. As decreasing FT, $R_f$ decreased and J increased, which was same with the previous result using alumina ultrafiltration membrane. The treatment efficiency of turbidity was high beyond 99.2%, and the effect of FT was not shown on treatment efficiency of turbidity, which was different with the previous result. The treatment efficiency of organic matters was the lowest value of 65.6% at NBF, and it increased as decreasing FT, which was different with the previous result, too. The reason was that the membrane fouling phenomena could show a different mechanism depending on ceramic membrane materials.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.194-202
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• 2009

In this study periodic water-back-flushing using permeate water was performed to minimize membrane fouling and to enhance permeate flux in advanced water treatment by tubular ceramic ultrafiltration membrane for Gongji stream in Chuncheon city. The back-flushing period (FT, filtration time) 2 min with periodic water-back-flushing of 15 sec showed the highest value of dimensionless permeate flux (permeate flux vs. initial permeate flux), and the lowest value of resistance of membrane fouling. Also in the results of BT effect at fixed FT 10 min, BT (back-flushing time) 20 sec showed the lowest value of resistance of membrane fouling and the highest value of dimensionless permeate flux, and we could be obtained the highest total permeate volume of 107.3 L. Consequently FT 10 min and BT 20 sec could be the optimal condition in Gongji stream water treatment, which was the exactly same results of our previous tubular alumina microfiltration. Then the average rejection rates of pollutants by our tubular ceramic UF system were 97.0% for turbidity, 32.1 % for chemical oxygen demand by manganese method, 28.8% for ammoniac nitrogen and 54.4% for T-P.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.137-147
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• 2017

A water treatment utility in South Korea operates a large system of pressurized hollow fiber membrane (PHFM) modules. The optimal selection of membrane module for the full scale plant was critical issue and carried out using Risk-based Life Cycle Cost (RbLCC) analysis based on the historical data of operation and maintenance. The RbLCC analysis was used in the process of decision-making for replacing aged modules. The initial purchasing cost and the value at risk during operation were considered together. The failure of modules occurs stochastically depending on the physical deterioration with usage over time. The life span of module was used as a factor for the failure of Poisson's probability model, which was used to obtain the probability of failure during the operation. The RbLCC was calculated by combining the initial cost and the value at risk without its warranty term. Additionally, the properties of membrane were considered to select the optimum product. Results showed that the module's life span in the system was ten years (120 month) with safety factor. The optimum product was selected from six candidates membrane for a full scale water treatment facility. This method could be used to make the optimum and rational decision for the operation of membrane water purification facility.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.38-46
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• 2005

In this research, we tried to combine the coagulation/sedimentation process as pre-treatment with UF membrane filtration to reduce the membrane fouling and to improve the permeate water quality. We used the Jet Mixed Separator (JMS) as coagulation/sedimentation process. We observed that the HPC and E.Coli can't be removed through the direct UF memebrane filtation of surface water. The removal efficiency of dissolved organic substances, indicated by E260 and DOC, was 40% and 15%, respectively. However, the removal efficiency of it increased two time as a result of combination of JMS process as coagulation/sedimentation pre-treatment. This was resulted from the formation of high molecular humic micro-floc through JMS process. The accumulation amount of irreversible cake layer which was not removed by backwashing was less than direct UF membrane filtration of surface water. Moreover, the loading rate of fouling induced substances, such as humic substances and suspended substances, on membrane surface decreased drastically through JMS process. As a result, the accumulation amount of irreversible cake on membrane surface was decreased.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.78-95
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• 1991

Water factory 21(WF 2) in Orange County California, is a advanced wastewater treatment(AWT) plant designed to reclaim biologically treated munidpal wastewater for injection into a seawater barrier system. Processes included are lime treatment air stripping, filtration, activated carbon adsorption, reverse osmosis(RO), and chlorination. The effectiveness of each treatment process is presented including pretreatment, RO dimineralization. The data collected show that the processes, including RO, used at WF-21 are capable of producing a very high quality water on a reliable basis. Treatment reduced all contaminants, to levels below national primary drinldng water regulation maximum contaminant levels. It was found that lime clarified secondary effluent can be used as feedwater to a RO dimineralizer. Experiments with new low pressure membrane(250psi) show great potential for reducing RO cost.