• 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.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.22-26
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• 2010

Generally, it is a method to remove the fouling cleaning the plate heat exchanger with chemicals or polishing with a brush or cloth after stopping the equipment and disassembling heat exchanger. However, the equipment must be stopped and taken apart when using this method, which causes an unnecessary work to assemble again after cleaning it. In this study, it has developed and tested the equipment which can automatically clean the fouling on plate heat exchanger at regular intervals with air bubbles. It indicated that the overall heat transfer coefficient had decreased without significant differences similar to that calculated without air bubbles until after 72 hours when making air bubbles to remove fouling ingredient on the surface of heat transfer area every 10 minutes per 2 hours. However, it showed that there was a 10% higher of heat transfer effect compared to the case without air bubbles of after 192 hours.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.30 no.9
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• pp.948-954
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• 2008

Membrane bioreactor(MBR) processes have been widely applied to wastewater treatment for last decades due to its excellent capability of solid-liquid separation. However, membrane fouling was considered as a limiting factor in wide application of the MBR process. Excess aeration into membrane surface is a common way to control membrane fouling in most MBR. However, the excessively supplied air is easily dissipated in the reactor, which results in consuming energy and thus, it should be modified for effective control of membrane fouling. In this study, cylindrical tube was introduced to MBR in order to use the supplied air effectively. Membrane fibers were immersed into the cylindrical tube. This makes the supplied air non-dissipated in the reactor so that membrane fouling could be controlled economically. Two different air supplying method was employed and compared each other; nozzle and porous diffuser which were located just beneath the membrane module. Transmembrane pressure(TMP) was monitored as a function of airflow rate, flux, and ratio of the tube area and cross-sectioned area of membrane fibers(A$_m$/A$_t$). Flow rate of air and liquid was regulated to obtain slug flow in the cylindrical tube. With the same flow of air supply, nozzle was more effective for controlling membrane fouling than porous diffuser. Accumulation of sludge was observed in the tube with the nozzle, if the air was not suppled sufficiently. Reduction of membrane fouling was dependent upon the ratio, A$_m$/A$_t$. For diffuser, membrane fouling was minimized when A$_m$/A$_t$ was 0.27, but 0.55 for nozzle.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.49-56
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• 1998

The Microfiltration and Ultrafiltration were used to treat effluent of secondary municipal wastewater treatment system(Sequencing Batch Reactor). The cross-flow hollow fiber, UF 500,000(NMWC) and MF 0.65$\mu$ membrane were selected as suitable membrane. Short term and long term fouling effect were measured as a factor of flux decrease and the fouling removal effect of mixing air bubble in the penetrant was studied. The removal of anionic sulfactants before and after formation of micelle with several kinds of oil were checked. The test results show that removal of TOC was 70~80%, TN 28% and TP 16%. The decrease of flux due to fouling were 85%(UF) and 90%(MF) after running of 100hrs. The removal of anionic sulfactants were 60~70% notwithstanding micelle or not.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.38 no.6
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• pp.323-328
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• 2016

Pressurized membrane used for side-stream MBR process requires fouling control strategy both for normal and abnormal operation conditions for stable operation of the facilities. In this study, $85m^3/day$ of pilot-scale side-stream MBR process was constructed for the evaluation of fouling mitigation by air bubble injection into the membrane module. In addition, fouling phenomena at abnormal operation conditions of low influent and/or loading rate were also investigated. Injection of air bubble was found to be effective in delaying transmembrane pressure (TMP) increase mainly due to scouring effect on the membrane surface, resulting in expanded filtration cycle at a high flux of $40L/m^2{\cdot}h$ (LMH). At abnormal operation condition, injection of PACl (53 mg/L as Al) into the bioreactor showed 19% reduction of TMP increase. However, inhibition of nitrifying bacteria by continuous PACl injection was observed from batch experiments. In contrast, injection of powdered activated carbon (PAC, 0.6 g/L) was able to maintain the initial TMP of $0.2kg/cm^2$ for 5 days at the abnormal conditions. It may have been caused from the adsorption of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), which was known to be excessively released during growth inhibition condition and act as the major foulants in MBR operations.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.152-156
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• 2016

Wastewater heat recovery heat pump systems use heated wastewater from public baths or factories as the heat pump's heat source. Generally, this system uses a bare tube evaporator. In the heat transfer process from wastewater to refrigerant, thermal resistance is caused primarily by fouling deposits on the outside surface of tube. Fouling directly increases thermal resistance and decreases heat pump efficiency. Thus, it is desirable to eliminate fouling. In this study, we fabricated a fouling mitigation device using a bubbling fluidized bed with cleaning sponge balls in the wastewater bath. Experimental conditions were as follows: $20^{\circ}C$ cold-water temperature, $40^{\circ}C$ wastewater temperature, 100 L/h cold water flow rate, and $0.161m^2$ heat exchanger surface area. Experimental results showed that the thermal resistance of fouling decreased by 56% with the fluidized bed alone and by 86% with both the fluidized bed and cleaning sponge balls.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.337-346
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• 2005

An MSBR using a membrane for not only filtration but also aeration (MA-MSBR) was designed to reduce membrane fouling and to enhance water quality, and compared with an MSBR using a membrane for only filtration (BA-MSBR). COD removal efficiency of the MA-MSBR was similar to that of the BA-MSBR, but membrane performance of the MA-MSBR was better than that of the BA-MSBR. The MA-MSBR had more small particles in mixed liquor, so the specific cake resistance of flocs in the MA-MSBR was higher than that in the BA-MSBR. However, in the aerobic reaction step of the MA-MSBR, air went through membrane pores and out of the membrane surface, so cake layers on the membrane surface and a portion of organics adsorbed on membrane pores could be removed periodically. Therefore, cake resistance, $R_c$, and fouling resistance by adsorption and blocking, $R_f$, for the MA-MSBR increased more slowly than those for the BA-MSBR. Additionally, in order to compare the energy efficiency for two MSBRs, oxygen transfer efficiency and power to supply air into the reactor by a membrane module and a bubble stone diffuser were measured using deionized water. From these measurements, the transferred oxygen amount per unit energy was calculated, resulting that of MA-MSBR was slightly higher than that of BA-MSBR.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.18 no.10
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• pp.842-849
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• 2006

In this study, the effect of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) on boiling heat transfer is investigated. Three refrigerants of R22, R123, R134a, and water are used as base working fluids and 1% of CNTs by volume is added to the base fluids to study the effect of CNTs. All data are obtained at the pool temperature of $7^{\circ}C$ for all refrigerants and $100^{\circ}C$ for water in the heat flux range of $10{\sim}80\;kW/m^2$. Test results show that CNTs increase the boiling heat transfer coefficients for all fluids. Especially, large enhancement was observed at low heat flutes. With increasing heat flux, however, the enhancement was suppressed due to vigorous bubble generations. Fouling was not observed during the course of this study. Optimum quantity and type of CNTs and their dispersion should be examined for their application in pool boiling heat transfer.