• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.320-326
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• 1999

The effects of operating pressure, lactate concentration, impurities, and pH on solution flux and lactate rejection in nanofiltration were investigated with model sodium lactate solutions (lactate 10~200g/L) as a model system. In the tested range of pressure(80~140 psig), the solution flux was observed to be proportional to the operating pressure and the rejection of lactate increased only slightly with the pressure. Both of the flux and the rejection decreased with lactate concentration, while the recovery rate of lactate increased. The effects of glucose and yeast extract as impurities on lactate rejection were negligible, but the flux decreased significantly with the addition of yeast extract. At low lactate concentrations, the rejection of lactate increased with pH due to the increased repulsion (Donnan exclusion effect) between lactate ions and membrane surface. But, at high lactate concentrations, the donnan effect was observed to be overwhelmed by the effect of sodium ions added to adjust the pH, and the rejection of lactate decreased with pH. When fermentation broth containing about 89g/L of lactate was nanofiltered, the flux and the rejection of lactate were 2.8L/$m^2$h and 5%, respectively at 120psig. Both of them were slightly lower than those with model solutions. The recovery rate was 2.6mol/$m^2$h.

• Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry
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• v.67
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• pp.199-209
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• 2018

Polyethersulfone (PES)/sulfonated $TiO_2$ ($STiO_2$) nanoparticles (NPs) UF blended membranes were fabricated with different loadings of $STiO_2$. The modified membranes exhibited significant improvement in surface roughness, porosity, and pore size when compared to the PES membrane. The $P-STiO_2$ 1 and $P-TiO_2$ 1 blended membranes exhibited higher water flux, approximately 102.4% and 62.6%, respectively, compared to PES. SPP-$STiO_2$ and $P-STiO_2$ showed lower Rir fouling resistance than the $P-TiO_2$ blended membrane. Overall, the $STiO_2$-blended membranes provide high hydrophilicity permeability, anti-fouling performance, and improved BSA rejection attributed to the hydrogen bonding force and more electrostatic repulsion properties of $STiO_2$.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.175-180
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• 2023

Mixed matrix membranes (MMMs) can be a promising alternative for the solution of dye removal from coloured effluents. Polymeric membranes are widely used due to their good film-forming ability, flexibility, separation properties, and cost. However, they have low mechanical, chemical, and thermal resistances. Moreover, the fouling of polymeric membranes is high because of their hydrophobic nature. Hence, there is an increasing interest in organic-inorganic hybrid membranes as a new-generation membrane material. It has been shown that carbon nanotubes have the potential to increase the material properties of polymers with their low density, high strength, hardness, and exceptional aspect ratio. In this work, carbon nanotubes blended MMMs were prepared and methyl orange removal efficiency of them was investigated. Compared to the bare membranes, MMMs showed not only increased hydrophilicity, water content, and pure water flux but also increased methyl orange rejection and flux recovery

• Membrane Journal
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.70-83
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• 2005

By supplying air intermittently in various mode, the effects of oxic/anoxic time ratio and air scrubbing in aeration condition on the membrane flux and permeability were investigated. When suction pump stops, vacuum pressure remains inside the suction pump. Therefore, the effect of remaining vacuum pressure in the suction pump on fouling of membrane was investigated. The effect of EPS (Extra cellular Polymeric Substance) which is generated due to the long SRT and high concentration of MLSS and the dose of coagulant on the membrane were also investigated. The suitable oxic/anoxic time ratio for the best removal efficiency of organic matter and nitrogenous matter was 40 minutes (Oxic) : 20 minutes (Anoxic). At this time ratio, alum was dosed into the aeration tank. The result of dosing alum was that the concentration of alum solution might affect nitrification and denitrification. To remove 1 mg/L of phosphorus in MBR process, it needs 0.75 mg/L of alum solution.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.239-250
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• 2011

A photovoltaic powered ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis system was tested with a number of natural groundwaters in Australia. The objective of this study was to compare system performance at six remote field locations by assessing the impact of water composition and fluctuating energy on inorganic contaminant removal using a BW30-4040 membrane. Solar irradiance directly affected pressure and flow. Groundwater characteristics (including TDS, salts, heavy metals, and pH), impacted other performance parameters such as retention, specific energy consumption and flux. During continual system operation, retention of ions such as $Ca^{2+}$ and $Mg^{2+}$ was high (> 95%) with each groundwater which can be attributed to steric exclusion. The retention of smaller ions such as $NO_3{^-}$ was affected by weather conditions and groundwater composition, as convection/diffusion dominate retention. When solar irradiance was insufficient or fluctuations too great for system operation, performance deteriorated and retention dropped significantly (< 30% at Ti Tree). Groundwater pH affected flux and retention of smaller ions ($NO_3{^-}$ and $F^-$) because charge repulsion increases with pH. The results highlight variations in system performance (ion retention, flux, specific energy consumption) with real solar irradiance, groundwater composition, and pH conditions.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.437-448
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• 2017

A high quality Na-X zeolite membrane was synthesized on a seeded ${\alpha}-alumina$ disc by the secondary growth method. Structural characterization was done by X-ray spectroscopy, FT-IR spectroscopy, SEM and AFM imaging. The performance evaluation of the membrane was firstly tested in separation of glucose/water solutions by pervaporation process. There was obtained a separation factor $182.7{\pm}8.8$, while the flux through the membrane was $3.6{\pm}0.3kg\;m^{-2}\;h^{-1}$. The zeolite membrane was then used for desalination of aqueous solutions consisting of $Na^+$, $Ca^{2+}$, $Cs^+$ and $Sr^{2+}$ because of the importance of these ions in water and wastewater treatments. The effects of some parameters such as temperature and solution concentration on the desalination process were studied for investigating of diffusion/adsorption mechanism in membrane separation. Finally, high water fluxes ranged from 2 up to $9kg\;m^{-2}\;h^{-1}$ were obtained and the rejection factors were resulted more than 95% for $Na^+$ and $Ca^{2+}$ and near to 99% for $Cs^+$ and $Sr^{2+}$. Based on the results, fluxes were significantly improved due to convenient passage of water molecules from large pores of NaX, while the fouling was declining dramatically. Based on the results, NaX zeolite can efficiently use for the removal of different cations from wastewaters.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.45-53
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• 2013

Membrane filtration processes are increasingly popular for drinking water treatment that requires high quality of water. But pre-treatment system (Coagulation/Flocculation/Sedimentation) requires increased footprint and installation cost. In addition, 5~10% of the concentrate are formed. In this study, the pressurized PVDF membrane (ECONITY Co., Ltd.) system was tested with surface water (Han River, South Korea) without pre-treatment. As a result, permeate flux was operated between 1 m/d and 2.4 m/d (at $25^{\circ}C$) without chemical cleaning for one year and membrane permeate turbidity was maintained stably under 0.05 NTU regardless of raw water turbidity. And we studied application of concetrate treatment of pressurized PVDF membrane by submerged PE membrane (ECONITY Co., Ltd.). As a result, we increased recovery of total treatment process to 99.5%.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.261-269
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• 2015

In this study, we applied a membrane distillation process to investigate a feasibility of treating a wastewater with high concentration of organic matters including nitrogen and phosphorus. The laboratory scale experiment was performed by using a hydrophobic PVDF membrane with the pore size of $0.22{\mu}m$ and porosity of 75%. The installation was direct contact type where the temperature difference between a feed and permeate side was controlled to have a range from 20 to $60^{\circ}C$. We observed a flux variation and a concentration changes of COD, $PO{_4}^{3-}$-P, $NH_4{^+}$-N and conductivity of feed side as well as permeate side with various temperature differences (20 to $60^{\circ}C$), cross flow velocities (0.09 to 0.27 m/s) through the module, and pH (6.6 to 12.0) of the feed that has the initial concentration of COD about 1,000 mg/L, total nitrogen 390 mg/L, total phosphorus 10 mg/L, conductivity of $7,000{\mu}s/cm$. The results showed that the average flux was ranged from 4 to $40L/m^2/hr$ which was almost similar with the flux of NaCl and deionized water used as a feed solution. The lowest flux was obtained at the operating condition with the temperature difference of $20^{\circ}C$ and cross flow velocity of 0.09 m/s while the highest one was measured with $60^{\circ}C$ and 0.27 m/s. Above 99% of COD and $PO{_4}^{3-}$-P in the feed could be rejected regardless of an operating condition. However, the removal rate of ammonium nitrogen was varied from 64 to 99% depending on the pH of feed solution.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.297-309
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• 2005

As a number of potential endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) are released into the environment, recently growing attention has been drawn to them. Therefore sensitive and reliable analytical methods are essential to monitor those compounds. In this study, complementary CC-MS and LC-MS were employed to analyze the endocrine disrupters, and the results of two methods were compared for di(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate (DEHP), benzylbutylphthalate (BBP), pentachlorophenol (PCP), and 4,4'-Isopropylidenediphenol (Bisphenol-A, or BPA). The results indicate that it was possible to lower the detection limits of EDCs by LC-MS. Also, LC-MS enabled to identify the EDCs as almost intact molecules. Furthermore, this study presented a nanofiltration membrane (MWCO 250) and a ultrafiltration membrane (MWCO 1,000) filtration system as methods far removing EDCs from drinking water containing $\gamma$-BHC, p,p'-DDE, BBP, p,p'-DDT, DEHP, PCP, and BPA. Cross-flow type nanofiltrations showed $100\%$ removal of EDCs, and the result implies that MWCO 250 nanofilter was sufficient for treatment of EDCs. The ratio of permeate flux to mass transfer coefficient of nanofiltration, high flux ultrafiltration, and low flux ultrafiltration with ultrapure water were 0.67, 3.4, and 0.44, respectively. It was found that nanofiltration and low flux ultrafiltration were operated at a diffusion dominant condition, and the high flux ultrafiltration was operated at a convection dominant condition. Furthermore, a diffusion dominant process attained reasonable rejection of EDCs. The removal in the ultrafiltration was depending on the molecular weight of an EDC, and the filtration was governed by diffusion-dominant hydrodynamic conditions.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.3
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• pp.581-588
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• 2020

The membrane fouling is an important problem for FO applied to the radioactive wastewater treatment. The FO fouling characteristics for simulated radioactive wastewater treatment was investigated. On-line cleaning by deionized (DI) water and external cleaning by ultrasound and HCl were applied for the fouled membrane. The effectiveness and foulant removing amount by each-step cleaning were evaluated. The membrane fouling was divided into three stages. Co(II), Sr(II), Cs(I), Na(I) were all found deposited on both active and support layers of the membrane surface, resulting in membrane surface became rougher and more hydrophobic, which increased membrane resistance. On-line cleaning by DI water recovered the water flux to 69%. HCl removed more foulants than ultrasound.