• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• 제14권3호
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• pp.121-128
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• 2023

This study introduces a NaOH/Zn-assisted hydrothermal method for the synthesis of zeolites derived from coal ash (CA). A zeolite/Zn adsorbent is successfully prepared by the activation of CA with NaOH and Zn; it is characterized by a high surface area and a negative surface charge.Methylene blue (MB) and methyl orange (MO) are selected as dye pollutants, and their adsorption onto the zeolite/Zn adsorbent is investigated. Results show the high adsorption capacities of MB and MO and that the negative surface charge facilitates electrostatic interactions between the adsorbates and adsorbents. The zeolite/Zn adsorbents shows the selective adsorption of positively charged dye MB via electrostatic interactions between the =NH+ group (positive dipole) and the oxygen functional group of the adsorbents (negative dipole). The selectivity for the positively charged dye is sufficiently high, with the removal efficiency reaching 99.41% within 10 min. By contrast, the negatively charged dye MO exhibits negligible absorption. These findings confirm the role of electrostatic interactions in the adsorption of MB, in addition to the effect of a large surface area. The results of this study are expected to facilitate the development of simple, eco-friendly, and cost-effective zeolite-based adsorptive composites from CA residuals for the selective removal of dye pollutants from CA waste.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• 제14권3호
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• pp.115-120
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• 2023

The design theory for nanoporous filtration membranes needs to be established. The present study shows that the performance and technical advancement of nanoporous filtration membranes are determined by the fundamental parameter I (in the unit Watt^1/2) which is formulated as a function of the shear strength of the liquid-pore wall interface, the radius of the filtration pore, the membrane thickness, and the bulk dynamic viscosity of the flowing liquid. This parameter determines the critical power loss on a single filtration pore for initiating the wall slippage, which is important for the flux of the membrane. It also relates the membrane permeability to the power cost by the filtration pore. It is shown that for biological cellular membranes its values are on the scale 1.0E-8Watt^1/2, for mono-layer graphene membranes its values are on the scale 1.0E-9Watt^1/2, and for nanoporous membranes made of silica, silicon nitride or silicon carbonized its values are on the scale 1.0E-5Watt^1/2. The scale of the value of this parameter directly measures the level of the performance of a nanoporous filtration membrane. The carbon nanotube membrane has the similar performance with biological cellular membranes, as it also has the value of I on the scale 1.0E-8Watt^1/2.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• 제14권2호
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• pp.77-83
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• 2023

As a result of algal bloom, algal organic matters (AOMs) are rapidly increased in surface water. AOMs can act as precursors for the formation of harmful disinfection by-products (DBPs), which are serious problems in water treatment and human health. The main aim of this study is to characterize the formation of DBPs from AOMs produced by three different algae such as Oscillatoria sp., Anabaena sp., and Microcystis aeruginosa under different algal growth phases. In an effort to examine formation of DBPs during chlorination, chloroform (TCM), dichloroacetic acid (DCAA) and trichloroacetic acid (TCAA) were determined under various CT (product of disinfectant concentration and contact time, mg·min/L) values. Generally, the amounts of DBPs tended to increase with increasing CT values at the most growth phases. However, there was a significant difference between the amounts of DBPs produced by the three algal species at different growth phases. This result is likely due to the chemical composition variability of AOM from different algae at different growth phases. In addition, the effect of pre-ozonation on coagulation for the removal of AOMs from three algal species was investigated. The pre-ozonation had a positive effect on the coagulation/flocculation of AOMs.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• 제14권2호
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• pp.95-106
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• 2023

In the developing country like India, groundwater is the main sources for household, irrigation and industrial use. Its contamination poses hydro-geological and environmental concern. The hazardous waste sites such as landfills can lead to contamination of ground water. The contaminants existing at such sites can eventually find ingress down through the soil and into the groundwater in case of leakage. It is necessary to understand the process of migration of pollutants through sub-surface porous medium for avoiding health risks. On this backdrop, the present paper investigates the behavior of pollutants' migration through porous media. The laboratory experiments were carried out on a soil-column model that represents porous media. Two different types of soils (standard sand and red soil) were considered as the media. Further, two different solutes, i.e., non-reactive and reactive, were used. The experimental results are simulated through numerical modeling. The percentage variation in the experimental and numerical results is found to be in the range of 0.75- 11.23 % and 0.84 - 1.26% in case of standard sand and red soil, respectively. While a close agreement is observed in most of the breakthrough curves obtained experimentally and numerically, good agreement is seen in either result in one case.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• 제13권1호
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• pp.51-62
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• 2022

Vacuum-assisted air gap membrane distillation (V-AGMD) has the potential to achieve higher flux and productivity than conventional air gap membrane distillation (AGMD). Nevertheless, there is not much information on technical aspects of V-AGMD operation. Accordingly, this study aims to analyze the effect of membrane deformation on flux in V-AGMD operation. Experiments were carried out using a bench-scale V-AGMD system. Statistical models were applied to understand the flux behaviors. Statistical models based on MLR, GNN, and MLFNN techniques were developed to describe the experimental data. Results showed that the flux increased by up to 4 times with the application of vacuum in V-AGMD compared with conventional AGMD. The flux in both AGMD and V-AGMD is affected by the difference between the air gap pressure and the saturation pressure of water vapor, but their dependences were different. In V-AGMD, the membranes were found to be deformed due to the vacuum pressure because they were not fully supported by the spacer. As a result, the deformation reduced the effective air gap width. Nevertheless, the rejection and LEP were not changed even if the deformation occurred. The flux behaviors in V-AGMD were successfully interpreted by the GNN and MLFNN models. According to the model calculations, the relative impact of the membrane deformation ranges from 10.3% to 16.1%.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• 제13권2호
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• pp.97-104
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• 2022

With a small particle size, specific surface area and chemical nature, Pd/Cu-Fe nanocomposites can efficiently remove the organic compounds. In order to understand the applicability for in situ remediation of contaminated groundwater, the degradation of p-nitrophenol by Pd/Cu-Fe nanoparticles was investigated. The degradation results demonstrated that these nanoparticles could effectively degrade p-nitrophenol and near 90% of degradation efficiency was achieved by Pd/Cu-Fe nanocomposites for 120 min treatment. The efficiency of degradation increased significantly when the Pd content increased from 0.05 wt.% and 0.10 wt.% to 0.20 wt.%. Meanwhile, the removal percentage of p-nitrophenol increased from 75.4% and 81.7% to 89.2% within 120 min. Studies on the kinetics of p-nitrophenol that reacts with Pd/Cu-Fe nanocomposites implied that their behaviors followed the pseudo-first-order kinetics. Furthermore, the batch experiment data suggested that some factors, including Pd/Cu-Fe availability, temperature, pH, different ions (SO42-, PO43-, NO3-) and humic acid content in water, also have significant impacts on p-nitrophenol degradation efficiency. The recyclability of the material was evaluated. The results showed that the Pd/Cu-Fe nanoparticles have good recycle performance, and after three cycles, the removal rate of p-nitrophenol is still more than 83%.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• 제13권2호
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• pp.63-72
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• 2022

Choline chloride-glycerol (1:2 mol), a natural deep eutectic solvent (NADES) is examined as a draw solution in forward osmosis (FO) for dewatering application. The NADES is easy to prepare, low in toxicity and environmentally benign. A polyamide thin film composite membrane was used. Characterization of the membrane confirmed porous membrane structure with good hydrophilicity and a low structural parameter (722 ㎛) suitable for FO application. A dilute solution of 20% (v/v) NADES was enough to generate moderate water flux (14.98 L m^-2h^-1) with relatively low reverse solute flux (0.125 g m^-2h^-1) with deionized water feed. Application in dewatering industrial wastewater feed showed reasonably good water flux (11.9 L m^-2h^-1) which could be maintained by controlling the external concentration polarization and fouling/scaling mitigation via simple periodic deionized water wash. In another application, clarified sugarcane juice could be successfully concentrated. Recovery of the draw solute was accomplished easily by chilling utilizing thermo responsive phase transition property of NADES. This study established that low concentration NADES can be a viable alternative as a draw solute for dewatering of wastewater and other heat sensitive applications along with a simple recovery process.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• 제13권2호
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• pp.105-110
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• 2022

Al₂O₃ positively charged nanofiltration composite membrane was successfully prepared with aluminate coupling agent (ACA) as modifier, sodium bisulfite (NaHSO₃) and potassium persulfate (K₂S₂O₈) as initiator and methacryloyloxyethyl trimethylammonium chloride (DMC) as crosslinking monomer. The surface of the membrane before grafting and after polymerization were characterized by SEM and FT-IR. Three factor and three-level orthogonal experiments were designed to explore the optimal conditions for membrane preparation, and the optimal group was successfully prepared. The filtration experiments of different salt solutions were carried out, and the retention molecular weight was determined by polyethylene glycol (PEG). The results showed that the polymerization temperature had the greatest effect on the rejection rate, followed by the reaction time, and the concentration of DMC had the least effect on the rejection rate. The rejection rates of CaCl₂, MgSO₄, NaCl and Na₂SO₄ in the optimal group were 83.8%, 81.3%, 28.1% and 23.6% (average value), respectively. The molecule weight cut-off of 90% (MWCO) of the optimal group was about 460, which belongs to nanofiltration membrane.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• 제13권2호
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• pp.73-83
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• 2022

In the present study, we compared the adsorption capacity of Pb (II) from contaminated water of used cardboard (UC) and a commercial powdered activated carbon (PAC), the latter has been characterized by different techniques, namely X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM/EDS), wavelength dispersion x-ray fluorescence (WDXRF), infrared spectroscopy (IR) and surface area B.E.T analyzer. The effect of various parameters, such as the pH, the contact time, the amount of adsorbent, and the temperature on the adsorption of Pb (II) on both materials was investigated. The Pb (II) adsorptions are perfectly described by a pseudo-second-order model, while the intraparticle diffusion is a decisive step after the first minutes of contact. The fit to the Langmuir and Redlich-Peterson models seems perfect for these adsorption reactions. (PAC) showed a greater affinity for Pb (II) compared to (UC) and the adsorption of Pb (II) ions is strongly pH-dependent, on the other hand, the increase in temperature doesn't have much influence on the two solids. This study showed that the capacity of (UC) to adsorb Pb (II) from an aqueous solution is greater than two-thirds of that of (PAC).

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• 제13권1호
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• pp.1-6
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• 2022

The regulations of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) have been steadily strengthened in ship emissions. Accordingly, there is a growing need for development of related technologies for the removal of contaminants that may occur during the treatment of SOx and NOx using a wet scrubber. However, this system also leads to wastewater production when the exhaust gas is scrubbed. In this research, we evaluated the performance of an ion selective resin process in accordance with scrubber wastewater discharge regulations, specifically nitrate discharge, by the IMO. Accelerated real and synthetic wastewater of wet scrubbers, contained high amounts of TDS with high nitrate, is used as feed water in lab scale systems. Furthermore, a pilot scale dissolved air flotation (DAF) using microbubble generator with ion exchange resin process was combined and developed in order to apply for the treatment of wet scrubber wastewater. The results of the present study revealed that operating conditions, such as resin property, bed volume (BV), and inlet wastewater flow rate, significantly affect the removal performance. Finally, through a pilot test, DAF with ion exchange resin process showed a noticeable improvement of the nitrate removal rate compared to the single DAF process.