• Membrane Journal
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.190-199
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• 2020

The utilization of multiple water sources becomes important due to the master plan for development of water supply released by Ministry of Environment, Korea in 2018. In this study, therefore, the analysis of comprehensive effect in blending applicable water sources in Daesan where 100,000 ㎥/d seawater desalination plant will be constructed for industrial use was performed. The increase in mixing ratio of other water sources with seawater reduced salinity up to 50%, but negatively impacted the turbid and organic matter. Lab-scale reverse osmosis performance test also found that membrane fouling was exacerbated in blended water condition. The simulation results of reverse osmosis indicated 39% energy saving on average is expected at the one-to-one blending ratio, however, long-term performance test at the pilot-scale plant is highly required to evaluate the inclusive impact of mixing seawater and other water sources.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.51-57
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• 2009

Biofouling in seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination process causes many problems such as flux decline, biodegradation of membrane, increased cleaning time, and increased energy consumption and operational cost. Therefore biofouling is considered as the most critical problem in system operation. To control biofouling in early stage, detection of the most problematic bacteria causing biofouling is required. In this study, six model bacteria were chosen; Bacillus sp., Flavobacterium sp., Mycobacterium sp., Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Pseudomonas fluorescens, and Rhodobacter sp. based on report in the literature and phylogenetic analysis of seawater intake and fouled RO membrane. The adhesion to RO membrane, the high pressure resistance, and the hydrophobicity of the six model bacteria were examined to find out their fouling potential. Rhodobacter sp. and Mycobacterium sp. were found to attach very well to RO membrane surface compared to others used in this study. The test of hydrophobicity revealed that the bacteria which have high hydrophobicity or similar contact angle with RO membrane ($63^{\circ}$ of contact angle) easily attached to RO membrane surface. P. aeruginosa which is highly hydrophilic ($23.07^{\circ}$ of contact angle) showed the least adhesion characteristic among six model bacteria. After applying a pressure of 800 psi to the sample, Rhodobacter sp. was found to show the highest reduction rate; with 59-73% of the cells removed from the membrane under pressure. P. fluorescens on the other hand analyzed as the most pressure resistant bacteria among six model bacteria. The difference between reduction rates using direct counting and plate counting indicates that the viability of each model bacteria was affected significantly from the high pressure. Most cells subjected to high pressure were unable to form colonies even thought they maintained their structural integrity.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.75-82
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• 2018

Forward osmosis (FO) desalination system has been highlighted to improve the energy efficiency and drive down the carbon footprint of current reverse osmosis (RO) desalination technology. To improve the trade-off between water flux and salt rejection of thin film composite (TFC) desalination membrane, thin film nanocomposite membranes (TFN), in which nanomaterials as a filler are embeded within a polymeric matrix, are being explored to tailor the separation performance and add new functionality to membranes for water purification applications. The objective of this article is to develop a graphene nanocomposite membrane with high performance of water selective permeability (high water flux, high salt rejection, and low reverse solute diffusion) as a next-generation FO desalination membrane. For advances in fabrication of graphene oxide (GO) membranes, layer-by-layer (LBL) technique was used to control the desirable structure, alignment, and chemical functionality that can lead to ultrahigh-permeability membranes due to highly selective transport of water molecules. In this study, the GO nanocomposite membrane fabricated by LBL dip coating method showed high water flux ($J_w/{\Delta}{\pi}=2.51LMH/bar$), water selectivity ($J_w/J_s=8.3L/g$), and salt rejection (99.5%) as well as high stability in aqueous solution and under FO operation condition.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.315-326
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• 2021

Lithium ion battery (LIB) demands increase every year globally to reduce the burden on fossil fuels. LIBs are used in electric vehicles, stationary storage systems and various other applications. Lithium is available in seawater, salt lakes, and brines and its extraction using environmentally friendly and inexpensive methods will greatly relieve the pressure in lithium mining. Membrane separation processes, mainly nanofiltration (NF), is an effective way for the separation of lithium metal from solutions. Electrodialysis and electrolysis are other separation processes used for lithium separation. The process of reverse osmosis (RO) is already a well-established method for the desalination of seawater; therefore, modifying RO membranes to target lithium metals is an excellent alternative method in which the only bottleneck is the interfering presence of other metal elements in the solution. Selectively removing lithium by finding or developing suitable NF membranes can be challenging, but it is nonetheless an exciting area of research. This review discusses in detail about lithium recovery via nanofiltration, electrodialysis, electrolysis and other processes.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.20-29
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• 2024

Membranes are increasingly used in a variety of applications including desalination, gas separation, disposable filters, and healthcare products. Recently, sustainable and green membrane fabrication technology is recognized as one of the decisive initiatives to reach the target of pollution control. Especially, the fabrication of bio-based membranes using such as poly lactic acid (PLA), polybutylene adipate terephthalate (PBAT), and polybutylene succinate (PBS) has attracted considerable attention. The phase inversion method is one of the versatile approaches for preparing PLA membranes. This article reviews the recent advances in PLA membrane preparation via the phase inversion method. Furthermore, it provides a perspective on the potential outlook for future advances. Overall, this review has demonstrated has been conducted in the area of bio-based PLA membranes.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.97-106
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• 2018

In this study, the effect of chemically enhanced backwash(CEB) coping with algal(Heterosigma Akashiwo) inflow was evaluated in the seawater desalination pretreatment process using ceramic membrane. In order to confirm the possibility of long-term filtration operation, the recovery rate of transmembrane pressure(TMP) due to the CEB using NaOCl was examined. When the membrane flow rate was 83.3 LMH, the TMP was maintained within 200 kPa for 84 hours in seawater influent. As the algal counts of 30,000 cell/mL were injected into the influent of seawater, however, the TMP rapidly increased and exceed maximum value. Membrane fouling caused by the algae was very poorly recovered by usual physical backwash. The CEB was performed for 30 min(3 min circulation / 27 min immersion) with 300 mg/L of NaOCl. As a result of the CEB application, it was possible to maintain a stable operating of filtration during 10 days and the average recovery rate of TMP by the CEB was 98.1%. It has been confirmed that the CEB using NaOCl is very effective in removal of membrane fouling by algae, resulted in stable membrane filtration for the long-term operation.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2018

Recently, interest in the development of alternative water resources has been increasing rapidly due to environmental pollution and depletion of water resources. In particular, seawater desalination has been attracting the most attention as alternative water resources. As seawater desalination consumes a large amount of energy due to high operating pressure, many researches have been conducted to improve energy efficiency such as energy recovery device (ERD). Consequently, this study aims to compare the energy efficiency of RO process according to ERD of isobaric type which is applied in scientific control pilot plant process of each $100m^3/day$ scale based on actual RO product water. As a result, it was confirmed that efficiency, mixing rate, and permeate conductivity were different depending on the size of the apparatus even though the same principle of the ERD was applied. It is believed that this is caused by the difference in cross-sectional area of the contacted portion for pressure transfer inside the ERD. Therefore, further study is needed to confirm the optimum conditions what is applicable to the actual process considering the correlation with other factors as well as the factors obtained from the previous experiments.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.635-643
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• 2016

Gas hydrate (GH)-based desalination process have a potential as a novel unit desalination process. GHs are nonstoichiometric crystalline inclusion compounds formed at low temperature and a high pressure condition by water and a number of guest gas molecules. After formation, pure GHs are separated from the remaining concentrated seawater and they are dissociated into guest gas and pure water in a low temperature and a high pressure condition. The condition of GH formation is different depending on the type of guest gas. This is the reason why the guest gas is a key to success of GH desalination process. The salt rejection of GH based desalination process appeared 60.5-93%, post treatment process is needed to finally meet the product water quality. This study adopted reverse osmosis (RO) as a post treatment. However, the test about gas rejection by RO process have to be performed because the guest gas will be dissolved in a GH product (RO feed). In this research, removal potential of dissolved gas by RO process is performed using lab-scale RO system and GC/MS analysis. The relation between RO membrane characteristics and gas removal rate were analyzed based on the GC/MS measurement.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.54 no.spc1
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• pp.1023-1035
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• 2021

The electricity cost of a desalination facility was also predicted and reviewed, which allowed the proposed model to be incorporated into the future design of such facilities. Input data from 2003 to 2014 of the Korea Hydrographic and Oceanographic Agency (KHOA) were used, and the structure of the model was determined using the trial and error method to analyze as well as hyperparameters such as salinity and seawater temperature. The future seawater quality was estimated by optimizing the prediction model based on machine learning. Results indicated that the seawater temperature would be similar to the existing pattern, and salinity showed a gradual decrease in the maximum value from the past measurement data. Therefore, it was reviewed that the electricity cost for seawater desalination decreased by approximately 0.80% and a process configuration was determined to be necessary. This study aimed at establishing a machine-learning-based prediction model to predict future water quality changes, reviewed the impact on the scale of seawater desalination facilities, and suggested alternatives.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.60 no.4
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• pp.525-534
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• 2022

In this study, we investigated the applicability and optimal operating strategy of a closed-loop pressure retarded membrane distillation (PRMD) for brackish water desalination. For effective operation with net power generation, high temperature of heat source over 90 ℃ and feed flow rate at 0.6 kg/s are recommended. At 3 g/L of feed concentration, the average permeate flux and net energy density showed 8.04 kg/m²/hr and 2.56 W/m², respectively. The average permeate flux and net energy density were almost constant in the range of feed concentration from 1 to 3 g/L. Compared to the case with seawater feed, the PRMD with brackish water feed showed higher average permeate flux and net energy density. Thus, PRMD application using brackish water feed can be more effective than that using seawater feed in terms of power generation.