• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.411-421
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• 2017

Forward osmosis (FO) is an emerging technology which can possibly make the desalination process more cost and energy efficient. One of the major factors impeding its growth is the lack of an appropriate draw solute. The present study deals with the identification of potential draw solutes, and rank them. The comparison was carried out among ten draw solutes on the basis of four main parameters namely; water flux, reverse salt diffusion, flux recovery and cost. Each draw solute was given three 24 hour runs; corresponding to three different concentrations; and their flux and reverse salt diffusion values were calculated. A fresh membrane was used every time except for the fourth time which was the flux recovery experiment conducted for the lowest concentration and the change of flux and reverse salt diffusion values from the initial run was noted. The organic solutes inspected were urea and tartaric acid which showed appreciable values in other parameters viz. reverse salt diffusion, flux recovery and cost although they generated a lower flux. They ranked 5th and 8th respectively. All the experimented draw solutes were ranked based on their values corresponding to each of the four main parameters chosen for comparison and Ammonium sulfate was found to be the best draw solute.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.183-195
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• 2014

The efficiency of two metal ions (cadmium, zinc) removal from aqueous solutions by ultrafiltration (UF) and Polymer Enhanced Ultrafiltration (PEUF) processes were investigated in this work. The UF and PEUF studies were carried out using an ultrafiltration tangential cell system equipped with 5.000 MWCO regenerated cellulose. A water-soluble polymer: the polyacrylic acid (PAA) was used as complexant for PEUF experiments. The effects of transmembrane pressure, pH, metal ions and loading ratio on permeate fluxes and metal ions removals were evaluated. In UF process, permeate fluxes increase linearly with increasing pH for different transmembrane pressure, which may be the consequence of the formation of soluble metal hydroxyl complexes in the aqueous phase. In PEUF process, above pH 5.0, the Cd(II) retention reaches a plateau at 90% and Zn(II) at 80% for L = 5. Also, cadmium retention at different L is greater than zinc retention at pH varying from 5.0 to 9.0. In a mixture solution, cadmium retention is higher than zinc for different loading ratio, this is due to interactions between carboxylic groups of PAA and metal ions and more important with cadmium ions.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.423-433
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• 2020

Direct current (DC) electric fields have been used for electro-osmotic dewatering. Under DC conditions, however, the electrical contact resistance between the electrode and the dewatering material increases considerably during the process of dewatering. Such a circumstance hinders the continuation of effective electro-osmotic dewatering. To reduce this hindrance, an applied pulse electric field with periodic reversals of the electrode polarity should improve electro-osmotic dewatering. In this study, electro-osmotic dewatering under pulse conditions was experimentally investigated for electrode polarity reversals. During the dewatering process, the pulse electric field was able to reduce the hindrance caused by the DC, resulting in an increased final dewatered amount relative to that under a DC electric field. For a constant applied voltage, the reversed polarity condition, under which the electric current passing through the material was almost unchanged with time, yielded the maximum final dewatered amount. This technique can be used to enhance drainage from a water storage facility during a period of extreme drought and the seawater desalination plants using reverse osmosis in drought stricken coastal regions.

• Clean Technology
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.154-160
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• 2016

For any conceivable desalination process using the gas hydrate formation, the kinetics has to be one of the most important parameters from the economic point of view. We thus were to improve the kinetics of the R-134a (also known as HFC-134a) gas hydrate formation by using promoters and three different kinds of edible surfactants were selected for the desalination process targeted to produce potable water; κ-carrageenan, lecithin, and polysorbate 80 among anionic, amphoteric, and nonionic surfactants, respectively. Then, the kinetics change of the R-134a hydrate formation was monitored by varying the surfactant concentration. Experimental results demonstrated that the rate of R-134a hydrate formation increases with the addition of edible surfactants in general and the effect as a promotor has an order of polysorbate 80 > κ-carrageenan > lecithin. As a supportive measure, the atomic charges of each surfactant were calculated by using a DFT (density functional theory)-based molecular modeling and the results showed a positive relationship between the promotor effect of each surfactant and the number of oxygens available for hydrogen bonding and the negativity of their atomic charge values.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.265-271
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• 2010

Desalination effects of capacitive deionization (CDI) process was studied using $TiO_2$/activated carbon electrode. In order to enhance the wettability of electrode and decrease a electrode resistance, $TiO_2$ was coated on activated carbon. By means of $TiO_2$ coating on activated carbon, electric double layer to adsorption content in CDI process was increased. It was identified from TEM, XRD, and XPS that the activated carbon based on $TiO_2$ composite was fabricated successfully by means of sol-gel method. As a results of cyclic voltammetry and impedance, it was identified that $TiO_2$/activated carbon electrode has more electric double later capacitance and less diffusion resistance than activated carbon. Also charge-discharge and ion conductivity profiles showed that the ion removal ratios of $TiO_2$/activated carbon electrode in NaCl electrolyte of $1000\;{\mu}S/cm$ more increased about 39% than that of activated carbon. In conclusion it was possible to identify that the carbon electrode coated $TiO_2$ as electrode material was more effective than raw carbon electrode.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.307-319
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• 2018

Ion-exchange membrane (IEM) has fixed charge groups and is a separation membrane which is capable of selectively transporting ions of the opposite polarity. Recently, the interest in IEMs has been increasing as the importance of the desalination and energy conversion processes using them as the key components has increased. Since the IEMs determine the efficiency of the above process, it is necessary to improve the separation performance and durability of them and also to lower the expensive membrane price, which is a hindrance to the widening application of the IEM process. Therefore, it is urgent to develop high-performance and low-cost IEMs. Among various types of IEMs, pore-filled membranes prepared by filling ionomer into a porous polymer substrate are intermediate forms of homogeneous membranes and heterogeneous membranes. The production cost would be cheap like the case of heterogeneous membranes because of the use of inexpensive supports and the reduction of the amount used of raw materials, and at the same time, they exhibit excellent electrochemical characteristics close to homogeneous membranes. In this review, major research and development trends of pore-filled IEMs, which are attracting attention as high-performance and low-cost IEMs, have been summarized and reported according to the application fields.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.279-284
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• 2016

Membrane distillation (MD) is the thermally driven water separation process based on the vapor pressure difference across the membrane. In order to increase the water recovery of the conventional RO process, the additional MD-PRO pocess was suggested. In this study, the syntheric RO brine was used as a feed solution of the MD process. Due to the high salinity of the RO brine, the MD membrane could be fouled by the scalants. In order to mitigate the scaling on the MD membrane surface, the pre-treatment process using the column filled by natural zeolite was applied. The roughing filter was installed between the pre-treatment process and MD system in order to prevent possible particulate fouling by the debries of the natural zeolite. Moreover, in order to enhance the CEC of the natural zeolite, the NaCl soaking was conducted. The flux and electronic conductivity were monitored under given experimental conditions. And the membrane morphology and the chemical compositions were analyzed by using the SEM-EDX.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.31 no.8
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• pp.627-634
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• 2009

This study was done to find out the formation mechanism of chlorate by electrochemical process using chloride ion ($Cl^-$) as an electrolyte. Firstly, the effective factors such as pH and initial chloride concentration were figured out to see the formation property of chlorate during electrolysis. And the relation of free chlorine, and mixed oxidants such as OH radical and ozone with chlorate were estimated to concretize the formation mechanism. As a result, it was found that the major reaction of chlorate formation would be electrochemical reaction with free chlorine, and also the direct oxidation of chloride ion and the reaction by OH radical were participated in the formation of chlorate. Moreover, it was observed that formed chlorate was oxidized to perchlorate. Lastly, the optimum condition was recommended by comparing free chlorine with chlorate concentration during the electrochemical process with the different electrode separation.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.93-100
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• 2021

Forward osmosis (FO) process is a chemical potential driven process, where highly concentrated draw solution (DS) is used to take water through semi-permeable membrane from feed solution (FS) with lower concentration. Recently, commercial FO membrane modules have been developed so that full-scale FO process can be applied to seawater desalination or water reuse. In order to design a real-scale FO plant, the performance prediction of FO membrane modules installed in the plant is essential. Especially, the flux prediction is the most important task because the amount of diluted draw solution and concentrate solution flowing out of FO modules can be expected from the flux. Through a previous study, a theoretical based FO module model to predict flux was developed. However it needs an intensive numerical calculation work and a fitting process to reflect a complex module geometry. The idea of this work is to introduce deep learning to predict flux of FO membrane modules using 116 experimental data set, which include six input variables (flow rate, pressure, and ion concentration of DS and FS) and one output variable (flux). The procedure of optimizing a deep learning model to minimize prediction error and overfitting problem was developed and tested. The optimized deep learning model (error of 3.87%) was found to predict flux better than the theoretical based FO module model (error of 10.13%) in the data set which were not used in machine learning.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.87-93
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• 2023

Electrodialysis (ED) is essential in separating ions through an ion exchange membrane. The disposal of brine generated from seawater desalination is a primary environmental concern, and its recycling through membrane separation technology is highly efficient. Alkali is produced by several chemical industries such as leather, electroplating, dyeing, and smelting, etc. A high concentration of alkali in the waste needs treatment before releasing into the environment as it is highly corrosive and has a chemical oxygen demand (COD) value. The concentration of calcium and magnesium is almost double in brine and is the perfect candidate for carbon dioxide adsorption, a major environmental pollutant. Sodium hydroxide is essential for the metal carbonation process which, is easily produced by the bipolar membrane electrodialysis process. Various strategies are available for its recovery, like reverse osmosis (RO), nanofiltration (NF), ultrafiltration (UF), and ED. This review discusses the ED process by ion exchange membrane for alkali recovery are discussed.