• Membrane Journal
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.130-137
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• 1998

Membrane fouling characteristics in the membrane-coupled activated sludge system were investigated. The influence of the floc size variation on the filtration resistance was analyzed using resistance-in-series model and mixed liquor was fractionated into three components to verify which component would give rise to a major contribution to the total resistance. The microbial floc size was rapidly reduced during the initial 4~6 hours of operation, and then decreased slightly but steadily, followed by leveling off at the size of 20 $\mu$m. The specific resistance of activated sludge increased with operation time, and measured values of specific resistance were matched well with the values estimated on the basis of the mean particle size in the mixed liquor. The contribution of soluble organics and cells to the total resistance was relativdy small compared with that of the supematant. Colloidal particles in the supematant showed much higher specific resistance than that of microbial floc, and played the most important role in the cake resistance.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.175-189
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• 2013

A membrane bioreactor (MBR) with sludge retention time (SRT) of 300 days was maintained for over 2 years. Polypropylene microfiltration (MF) membrane with pore size of 0.2 ${\mu}m$ was used in the MBR system. The fouling behaviors of various sludge fractions from the MBR were studied and sub-divided resistances were analyzed. It was observed that $R_{cp}$ was a dominant resistance during the filtration of activated sludge, contributing 63.0% and 59.6% to the total resistance for MBR and sequential batch reactor (SBR) respectively. On the other hand, $R_c$ played the significant role during the filtration of supernatant and solutes, varying between 54.54% and 67.18%. Compared with $R_{cp}$ and $R_c$, $R_{if}$ was negligible, and $R_m$ values remained constant at $0.20{\times}10^{12}m^{-1}$. Furthermore, resistances of all sludge fractions increased linearly with rising mixed liquor suspended solids (MLSS) concentration and growing trans-membrane pressure (TMP), while the relationship was inversed between fraction resistances and cross flow velocity (CFV). Among all fractions of activated sludge, suspended solid was the main contributor to the total resistance. A compact cake layer was clearly observed according to the field emission scanning electro microscopy (FE-SEM) images.

• 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.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.730-738
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• 1992

Filtration characteristics according to membrane materials were studied In the ultrafiltration of anaerobic digestion broth as a post treatment method. A series of resistances for different membranes were quantitatively assessed on the basis of the resistance-in-series model. Flux behavior observed with the digestion broth was irrelevant to initial water permeabilities of each membrane. The fluoro polymer membrane showed the most significant improvement of flux with increase of cross-flow velocity, which suggests that the cake layer formed on this membrane is more weakly attached to the membrane surface than those on the other membranes. Flux reduction during longtime running was attrib-used to the polarization layer resistance ($R_p$) as well as the fouling layer resistance($R_f$). Continuous increase of $R_p$ may reflect the variation in the characteristics of cake layers, which could result from size, shape, and structure changes due to lysis and growth of biomass. Hydrophilic cellulosic membrane had a much lower fouling tendency than hydrophobic polysulfone membrane. The depressurization method induced a small increase in flux of $5-10L/m^2/h$. During washing and cleaning, filtrability of each membrane was rapidly recovered within 15 minutes until a stationary value was reached.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.632-638
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• 2005

Membrane fouling index such as Silt Density Index (SDI) and Modified Fouling Index (MFI) is an important parameter in design of the integrated RO/NF membrane processes for drinking water treatment. In this study, the effect of particle, membrane and feed water characteristics on membrane fouling index were investigated systematically. Higher fouling index values were observed when filtering suspensions with smaller particle size and higher feed particle concentration. Larger membrane resistance due to smaller pore size resulted in an increased membrane fouling index. The variations of feed water hardness and TDS concentrations did not show any impact on fouling index, suggesting that there were no significant colloidal interactions among particles and thus the porosity of particle cake layer accumulated on the membrane surface could be assumed to be 0.36 according to random packing density. Based on the experimental observations, fundamental membrane fouling index model was developed using Happel Cell. The effect of primary model parameters including particle size ($a_p$), particle concentration ($C_o$), membrane resistance ($R_m$), were accurately assessed without any fitting parameters, and the prediction of membrane fouling index such as MFI exhibited very good agreement with the experimental results.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.121-128
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• 2009

Objectives of this study were to investigate influencing factors of detention time, particle size distribution, and filter medium characteristics for waterworks sludge dewatering. The stepped pressure filtration was carried out with lab scale apparatus and the filter press pilot test for dewatering was conducted at the water treatment plant. Effects of filter medium and polymer dose were examined through observing water content and dewatering velocity and cyclic dewatering rate with filter press pilot test. Relationships among detention time, particle size distribution and filtration resistance were analyzed. Prolongation of sludge detention time was found to cause blinding phenomenon in cake and filter medium and to decrease dewatering process efficiency. The average specific resistance increased according to detention time. In pilot test of dewatering for thickened sludge with Nylon Multi-NY840D and Nylon Mono-100% filter media, dewatering velocities were 0.92 and $0.93kg\;DS/m^2{\cdot}hr$ according to 0.1% polymer dose of dried solids weight base. And cyclic dewatering rates were 2.45 and $2.50kg\;DS/m^2{\cdot}cycle$ cycle for the Nylon Multi-NY840D and Nylon Mono-100% media. Dewatering velocity of polymer dosed sludge was observed to be higher than that of non-polymer sludge.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.709-715
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• 2007

The dewaterability of a sludge can be characterized by two ways: the residual moisture content in the sludge cake after dewatering process, and the filtration of the sludge. Time to filter (TTF) represents filtration processes that are special cases of the flow through a solid matrix concept. TTF characterizes a resistance to filtration. The sludge resistance, in turn, can be subdivided into resistances associated with the solid phase and the liquid phase to evaluate the effect of each of the two phases on sludge dewaterability. In order to determine the dewatering characteristics of the water sludge samples, TTF and zeta potential were measured. For these studies cationic polymer was chosen for water sludge dewatering experiments. The zeta potential of thickener sludges neared from minus values to zero values till 4 days after sampling. The dewaterability of thickener sludges using cationic polymer was deteriorated according to the increase of detention time. As the detention time was increased from 4 to 10 days, the optimal dose of the polymer was increased from 4 to 8mg/L. Therefore, the optimal detention time plays an important part for the dewaterability of a sludge.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.66-74
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• 2004

Total resistance of membrane in a micro-filtration system using a metal membrane was mainly attributed to the permeate resistance of cake layer($R_c$), which was formed by deposited particles from the physico-chemical interactions of solids on membrane surface. Intermittent back ozonation was highly effective than the air backwashing for fouling reduction. As far the operational effect, under same ozone injection, the increase of gas flow-rate was more favorable than the increase of injection time far the recovery of permeation flux. As the filtration time was longer, the effect of flux recovery by intermittent back-ozonation decreased. Therefore, it is preferable to operate membrane cleaning before the foulant is consolidated on membrane surface.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.88-100
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• 2003

A change of filtrate flux in Taylor vortex flow filtration was investigated experimentally by rotating speed of inner cellulose ester membrane cylinder (average pore size: 1.2 ${\mu}m$), slurry concentration, and particle size. The filtrate flux was a direct proportion relation with TMP, but an inverse relation with resistances. A change of cake resistance with time was examined by rotating speed, slurry concentration, and particle size. Initial resistance increased dramatically as raising slurry concentration, and the pseudo-steady state was maintained at high resistance value. However, times to reach the pseudo-steady state did not depend on slurry concentration. The resistance was larger as smaller particle size, because possibility of pore blocking inside membrane could be higher and shear effect should be lower as smaller particle size. A model equation suggested in this study was composed of particle deposition and removal terms, and could confirm well experimental data using average values of experimental coefficients.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.1 no.4
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• pp.297-316
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• 2010

Membrane fouling is one of the major operational concerns of membrane processes which results in loss of productivity. This paper investigates the ultrafiltration (UF) results of synthetic oil-in-water (o/w) emulsion using flat sheets of polysulfone (PSf) membrane synthesized with four different compositions. The aim is to identify the mechanisms responsible for the observed permeate flux reduction with time for different PSf membranes. The experiments were carried out at four transmembrane pressures i.e., 68.9 kPa, 103.4 kPa, 137.9 kPa and 172.4 kPa. Three initial oil concentrations i.e., 75 $mgL^{-1}$, 100 $mgL^{-1}$ and 200 $mgL^{-1}$ were considered. The resistance-in-series (RIS) model was applied to interpret the data and on that basis, the individual resistances were evaluated. The significances of these resistances were studied in relation to parameters, namely, transmembrane pressure and initial oil concentration. The total resistance to permeate flow is found to increase with increase in both transmembrane pressure and initial oil concentration while for higher oil concentration, resistance due to concentration polarization is found to be the prevailing resistance. The applicability of the constant pressure filtration models to the experimental data was also tested to explain the blocking process. The study shows that intermediate pore blocking is the dominant mechanism at the initial period of UF while in the later period, the fouling process is found to approach cake filtration like mechanism. However, the duration of pore blocking mechanism is different for different membranes depending on their morphological and permeation properties.