• Membrane Journal
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.180-190
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• 2015

PVDF (polyvinylidene fluoride) nanofiber has the advantages such as excellent strength, chemical resistance, nontoxic, non-combustibility. Flat membranes with 0.3 and $0.4{\mu}m$ pore size respectively, were manufactured by PVDF nanofiber, and then each spiral wound module was prepared with them. A woven paper was not included in preparing the module with $0.3{\mu}m$ pore size; however, it was included the module with $0.4{\mu}m$ pore size. The permeate fluxes and rejection rates of the two modules were compared using pure water and simulation solution including kaolin and humic acid. The recovery rate and filtration resistance were calculated after water back-washing. In addition, the effect of flow rate and trans-membrane pressure on treatment efficiency and filtration resistance were investigated for the spiral wound module with $0.4{\mu}m$ pore size.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.56 no.1
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• pp.56-60
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• 2018

There have been a lot of study to improve the performance of membrane filters as the removal of particulate matter has been of great interest due to the negative effects. Among the membrane fabrication techniques, the electrospinning technique is the most promising because it can produce uniform fibers ranging from nano to micrometer size. The electrospun membranes will greatly improve the filtration performance due to the high ratio of surface area to volume and the high porosity. In the present study, polystyrene (PS) and cellulose acetate (CA) polymers were used to produce the membranes with carbon nanotube (CNT), showing the filtration performances were improved with the optimal amounts of CNT.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.170-183
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• 2021

Fouling has continued to be a problem that hinders the effectiveness of membrane properties. To solve this problem of reducing fouling effects on membrane surface properties, different and innovative types of membrane patterning has been proposed. This article reviews on the progress of patterned membranes and their separation process concerning the fouling effects of membranes. The types of separation processes that utilize the maximum effectiveness of the patterned membranes include nanofiltration (NF), reverse osmosis (RO), microfiltration (MF), ultrafiltration (UF), and pervaporation (PV). Using these separation processes have shown and prove to have a major effect on reducing fouling effects, and in addition, they also add beneficial properties to the patterned membranes. Each patterned membrane and their separation processes gave notable results in threshold towards flux, salt rejections, hydrophilicity and much more, but there are also some unsolved cases to be pointed out. In this review, the effects of patterned membrane for separation processes will be discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Marine Environment & Energy
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.9-14
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• 2015

There are various ions in seawater. In order to use seawater as the drinking water, some elements are to be concentrated and other elements are to be removed. To obtain these characteristics using seawater, it is necessary to adjust seawater quality. Because calcium and magnesium are especially healthful to human bodies, it is required to concentrate these elements. In this study, the technology to obtain the hard water from seawater by electerodialysis was investigated. After concentrated water was produced using nanofiltration membranes, sodium chloride was eliminated from the concentrated water by electrodialysis. The hard water production from seawater was successfully achieved using electrodialysis in this study.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.142-150
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• 2014

This paper is to develop the process suitable for the advanced treatment of liquid fertilizer from the livestock night soil treatment facility (biogas plant). Nanofiltration (NF) and reverse osmosis (RO) process was used, respectively, for the advanced treatment of liquid fertilizer. And membrane bioreactor (MBR) with and without biomedia were tested, respectively, for the pretreatment. It was found that almost T-N of the liquid fertilizer was composed of ammoniacal nitrogen. Transmembrane pressure of MBR with biomedia increased slowly during the operation time, while that of MBR without biomedia increased rapidly at the initial time. But there was no difference observed in the removal efficiencies of COD, T-N, and T-P irrespective of the dosage of biomedia. When the liquid fertilizer was pretreated by MBR with biomedia, the removal efficiencies of COD, T-N, and T-P were 99.8, 86.5%, and 99.8% by NF, and 99.9, 86.8%, and 99.8% by RO, respectively. Compared with the effluent quality standards of the livestock night soil treatment facility, the water quality treated by MBR and NF/RO process met the standard for COD and T-P, but exceeded the permitted standard for T-N. In order to meet the effluent quality standard for T-N, it is necessary to change the MBR operation cycle or to add the secondary treatment by NF/RO.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.185-190
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• 2008

In a previous study, we probed the potential of poly(styrene sulfonate) (PSS)/poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride) (PDADMAC) nanofiltration (NF) membranes for the separation of monovalent anions, with an emphasis on the selective rejection of $F^-$. Remarkably, deposition of $(PSS/PBADMAC)_4PSS$ films on porous alumina supports yielded membranes that exhibited $Cl^-/F^-$ selectivity > 3 with minimal $Cl^-$ rejection, and a solution flux of $3.5m^3/m^2$-day at 4.8 bar. When the number of PSS/PDADMAC bilayers was increased from 4.5 to 5.5, however, $F^-$ rejection decreased from 73% to 50% and $Cl^-/F^-$ selectivity dropped to 1.9. Addition of another bilayer to form $(PSS/PDADMAC)_6$ PSS films resulted in a significant increase in $Cl^-$ rejection to give essentially no $Cl^-/F^-$ selectivity. The decrease of selectivity with deposition of more than 4.5 bilayers was not expected and it was unclear whether this characteristic was substrate independent. In this study, to investigate the effect of substrates on NF performance of multilayer polyelectrolyte membranes, PSS/PDADMAC films were deposited on 50 kDa polyethersulfone (PES) ultrafiltration supports instead of porous alumina supports. The results indicate that, although fluoride rejection and the number of bilayers at which a maximum $F^-$ rejection occurs are different, the trend is similar for both types of substrates. Therefore, we can conclude that the M: characteristics of multilayer polyelectrolyte membranes may be substrate independent.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.379-387
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• 2018

This study was conducted to improve the membrane characteristics and performance by increasing hydrophilicity by adding additives to the ultrafiltration polysulfone (PSf) hollow fiber membrane. The mixed matrix membranes (MMMs) were prepared by dispersing 15 nm of fumed silica (FS) in the spinning solution at 0.1, 0.3 and 0.5 wt%. SEM analysis was carried out to confirm the cross-section and surface condition. It was confirmed that mean pore radius of the hollow fiber increased by 4 nm as FS was added. In addition, contact angle measurement was carried out for the hydrophilicity analysis of hollow fiber membranes, and it was confirmed that the hydrophilicity of MMMs were increased by adding of FS. In the case of water permeability, the membrane including FS showed 91~96 LMH and showed 5~11% more increase than PSf membrane. In the antifouling performance test, relative flux reduction ratios of FS mixed hollow fiber membranes were lower than that of PSf membranes, and it was confirmed that increase of hydrophilicity hinders adsorption of hydrophobic BSA on the membrane surface.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.68-76
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• 2017

Flat membrane with $0.4{\mu}m$ pore size was prepared with PVdF (polyvinylidene fluoride) nanofiber, which has the advantages such as excellent strength, chemical resistance, non-toxicity, and incombustibility. The spiral wound module was manufactured with the flat membrane and a woven paper. Hybrid water treatment process was composed of the PVdF nanofibers spiral wound microfiltration and granular activated carbon (GAC) adsorption column. Effect of GAC packing mass was investigated by comparing the case of recycling or discharging the treated water using the synthetic solution of kaolin and humic acid. After each filtration experiment, water back-washing was performed, and recovery rate and filtration resistances were calculated. Also, effect of GAC adsorption was compared by measuring turbidity and $UV_{254}$ absorbance. As a result, there was no effect of GAC packing mass on turbidity treatment rate; however, the treatment rate of $UV_{254}$ absorbance was 0.7~3.6% for recycling the treated water, and increased to 3.2-5.7% for discharging the treated water. In the case of recycling the treated water, reversible filtration resistance ($R_r$) and irreversible filtration resistance ($R_{ir}$) trended to decrease as increasing GAC packing mass; however, total fitration resistance ($R_t$) was almost constant, and recovery rate of water back-washing trended to increase a little.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.263-275
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• 2019

In the present study, thickness of MOR zeolite membranes was controlled by changing seed size, seeding amount, and aging time of hydrothermal solution, and then effect of membrane thickness on pervaporative ethanol dehydration for 90 wt.% ethanol-water mixture was investigated. First, nanosize MOR zeolite seeds with a diameter of 20 to 30 nm was successfully prepared by planetary milling a laboratory synthesized MOR zeolites and the coating amount was controlled by seed concentration and infiltration volume of coating solution during vacuum-assisted seeding. As seeding amount decreased, membrane thickness was reduced up to around $4{\mu}m$. The MOR zeolite membrane having a thickness of $4{\mu}m$ showed a water/ethanol separation factor of 760 and water flux of $1.0kg/m^2h$. The excellent water flux was due to the reduced membrane thickness which was derived from the nanosize seed. Therefore, it could be concluded that membrane thickness control by using nanosize seed can be a crucial factor to improve pervaporative water flux of MOR zeolite membrane.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.314-324
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• 2022

This study is aimed to design a membrane process that systematically removes contaminants including microplastics in sun-dried salt using a separation membrane. In this study, we selected the separation membrane material, pore size, and module suitable for the sun-dried salt fields, and proceeded with the experiments under the salt fields and laboratory conditions. A pilot plant was constructed and tested in our lab and in the actual saltern with the selected 200 kDa, 4 kDa ultrafiltration membranes, and 3 kDa nanofiltration membranes. Most of the impurities in the sea salt were 0.1 ㎛ in size, and more than 7 types of various microplastics were detected in the impurities. After that, as a result of checking the filtered water through the separation membrane process, no impurities were detected. As a result of comparing the existing sea salt component and the sea salt component prepared with separation membrane filtrate, impurities were effectively removed without change in the sea salt component.