• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
• /
• v.22 no.1
• /
• pp.1-10
• /
• 2000

An experimental study regarding the effect of emulsions on RO is presented. Heavy oil was added to the sea water and the distilled water separately and treated for 30 minutes by a homogenizer to make emulsions. For the case of the sea water without heavy oil the permeate decreased from the beginning of the experiment. Chloride and conductivity increased with time, due to the fouling occurring as the suspended solids in the sea water accumulated on the membrane surface. Rejection rate of salt was 99.6~99.7%. As for the sea water containing heavy oil, the permeate decreased slowly from the beginning of the experiment. This result was the same for the case of the sea water only. However. chloride and conductivity increased significantly when heavy oil was added. In the second experiment with sea water containing heavy oil, the operation time of RO was reduced considerably. With addition of oil, the chloride increased greatly, while the permeate reduced comparatively. In the experiment where emulsion of $0.3{\sim}0.8mg/{\ell}$ was supplied to RO. oil concentration was about 10ppb in the permeate at the end of the experiment. In case of the distilled water containing heavy oil. the conductivity increased. However. the permeate reduced to 30% compared to the case of the sea water containing heavy oil. The case of sea water containing heavy oil showed an opposite result, but the effect of the addition of oil on RO was significant. Oil caused fouling of the RO and the contamination of the whole system, and as the result the system could not be operated properly. As a result the membrane capacity, the amount and water quality of permeate deteriorated significantly.