• Membrane and Water Treatment
• /
• v.8 no.4
• /
• pp.355-367
• /
• 2017

In India, the current operation of condenser cooling system & effluent disposal system in existing power plants aims to reduce drawal of seawater and to achieve Zero Liquid Discharge to meet the demands of statutory requirements, water scarcity and ecological system. Particularly in the Steam-Electric power plants, condenser cooling system adopts Once through cooling (OTC) system which requires more drawal of seawater and effluent disposal system adopts sea outfall system which discharges hot water into sea. This paper presents an overview of closed-loop technology for condenser cooling system and to achieve Zero Liquid Discharge plant in Steam-Electric power plants making it lesser drawal of seawater and complete elimination of hot water discharges into sea. The closed-loop technology for condenser cooling system reduces the drawal of seawater by 92% and Zero Liquid Discharge plant eliminates the hot water discharges into sea by 100%. Further, the proposed modification generates revenue out of selling potable water and ZLD free flowing solids at INR 81,97,20,000 per annum (considering INR 60/Cu.m, 330 days/year and 90% availability) and INR 23,760 per annum (considering INR 100/Ton, 330 days/year and 90% availability) respectively. This proposed modification costs INR 870,00,00,000 with payback period of less than 11 years. The conventional technology can be replaced with this proposed technique in the existing and upcoming power plants.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
• /
• v.8 no.4
• /
• pp.311-321
• /
• 2017

Hydrophilic and high modulus PPTA molecules were incorporated into PVDF matrix via the in situ polymerization of PPD and TPC in PVDF solution. PPTA/PVDF/NWF blend membrane was prepared through the immersion precipitation phase inversion method and nonwoven coating technique. The membrane integrated technology including PPTA/PVDF/NWF blend membrane and reverse osmosis (RO) membrane was employed to treat the polyester/viscose spunlace nonwoven process wastewater. During the consecutive running of six months, the effects of membrane integrated technology on the COD, ammonia nitrogen, suspended substance and pH value of water were studied. The results showed that the removal rate of COD, ammonia nitrogen and suspended substance filtered by PPTA/PVDF blend membrane was kept above 90%. The pH value of the permeate water was about 7.1 and the relative water flux of blend membrane remained above 90%. After the deep treatment of RO membrane, the permeate water quality can meet the water circulation requirement of spunlace process.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
• /
• v.8 no.4
• /
• pp.381-393
• /
• 2017

The inorganic components in tobacco sheet extract have significant influence on the sensory taste of the cigars and the harmful component delivery in cigarette smoke. To identify the contributions of the divalent inorganic components on harmful components delivery in cigarette smoke, a self-made selective electrodialysis was assembled with monovalent ion-selective ion exchange membranes. The influences of current density and extract content on the desalination performance were investigated. Result indicates that the majorities chloride, nitrate, and sulfate ions were removed, comparing with 50-60% of potassium and only less than 10% of magnesium and calcium ions removed in the investigated current density. The permselectivity of the tested cations across the Selemion CSO cation exchange membranes follows the order: $K^+>Ca^{2+}>Mg^{2+}$. A current density of $15mA/cm^2$ is an optional choice by considering both the energy consumption and separation efficiency. When the extract contents are in the range of 7%-20%, the removal ratios the potassium ions are kept around 60%, while the removal ratios of the calcium and magnesium ions fluctuate in the range of 16-27% and 8-14%, respectively. The tobacco smoke experiments indicated that the divalent metal ions have dual roles for the harmful component delivery in cigarette smoke. The divalent potassium and calcium ions were unfavorable for the total particulate matter emission but beneficial to decrease the HCN delivery in the mainstream cigarette smoke. The selective electrodialysis is a robust technology to decrease the harmful component delivery in cigarette smoke.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
• /
• v.9 no.2
• /
• pp.95-104
• /
• 2018

Copper pollution around the world has caused serious public health problems recently. The heavy metal adsorption on traditional membranes from wastewater is limited by material properties. Different adsorptive materials are embedded in the membrane matrix and act as the adsorbent for the heavy metal. The carbonized leaf powder has been proven as an effective adsorbent material in removing aqueous Cu(II) because of its relative high specific surface area and inherent beneficial groups such as amine, carboxyl and phosphate after carbonization process. Factors affecting the adsorption of Cu(II) include: adsorbent dosage, initial Cu(II) concentration, solution pH, temperature and duration. The kinetics data fit well with the pseudo-first order kinetics and the pseudo-second order kinetics model. The thermodynamic behavior reveals the endothermic and spontaneous nature of the adsorption. The adsorption isotherm curve fits Sips model well, and the adsorption capacity was determined at 61.77 mg/g. Based on D-R model, the adsorption was predominated by the form of physical adsorption under lower temperatures, while the increased temperature motivated the form of chemical adsorption such as ion-exchange reaction. According to the analysis towards the mechanism, the chemical adsorption process occurs mainly among amine, carbonate, phosphate and copper ions or other surface adsorption. This hypothesis is confirmed by FT-IR test and XRD spectra as well as the predicted parameters calculated based on D-R model.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
• /
• v.9 no.2
• /
• pp.69-77
• /
• 2018

The use of membrane as an innovative technology for water treatment process has now widely been accepted and adopted to replace the conventional water treatment process in increasing fresh water production for various domestic and industrial purposes. In this study, ultrafiltration (UF) membranes with different formulation were fabricated via phase inversion method. The membranes were fabricated by varying the polymer concentration (16 wt%, 18 wt%, 20 wt%, and 21 wt%). A series of tests, such as field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM), pore size and porosity, contact angle, and zeta potential were performed to characterize the membranes. The membrane performance in terms of permeation flux and rejection were evaluated using a laboratory bench-scale test unit with mine water, lake water and tube well as model feed solution. Long hour filtration study of the membranes provides the information on its fouling property. Few pore blocking mechanism models were proposed to examine the behaviour of flux reduction and to estimate the fouling parameters based on different degree of fouling. 21 wt% PVDF membrane with smaller membrane pore size showed an excellent performance for surface water treatment in which the treated water complied with NWQS class II standard.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
• /
• v.9 no.2
• /
• pp.115-121
• /
• 2018

Artificial neural network (ANN) simulation is used to predict the dynamic change of permeate flux during wheat starch industry wastewater microfiltration with and without static turbulence promoter. The experimental program spans range of a sedimentation times from 2 to 4 h, for feed flow rates 50 to 150 L/h, at transmembrane pressures covering the range of $1{\times}10^5$ to $3{\times}10^5Pa$. ANN predictions of the wastewater microfiltration are compared with experimental results obtained using two different set of microfiltration experiments, with and without static turbulence promoter. The effects of the training algorithm, neural network architectures on the ANN performance are discussed. For the most of the cases considered, the ANN proved to be an adequate interpolation tool, where an excellent prediction was obtained using automated Bayesian regularization as training algorithm. The optimal ANN architecture was determined as 4-10-1 with hyperbolic tangent sigmoid transfer function transfer function for hidden and output layers. The error distributions of data revealed that experimental results are in very good agreement with computed ones with only 2% data points had absolute relative error greater than 20% for the microfiltration without static turbulence promoter whereas for the microfiltration with static turbulence promoter it was 1%. The contribution of filtration time variable to flux values provided by ANNs was determined in an important level at the range of 52-66% due to increased membrane fouling by the time. In the case of microfiltration with static turbulence promoter, relative importance of transmembrane pressure and feed flow rate increased for about 30%.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
• /
• v.10 no.6
• /
• pp.471-484
• /
• 2019

The complex combination of organic contaminants in the wastewater made water treatment challenging; hence, organic matter in water bodies is usually measured in terms of organic carbon. Since it is important to identify the types of compounds when deciding suitable treatment methods, this study implemented a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the organic matter content in an actual graywater sample from Ulsan, Republic of Korea using mass spectroscopy (MS). The graywater was treated using adsorption to remove the organic contaminants. Using orbitrap MS, the organic matter content between an untreated graywater and the treated effluent were compared which yielded a significant formula count difference for the samples. It was revealed that CHON formula has the highest removal count. Isotherm studies found that the Freundlich equation was the best fit with a coefficient of determination ($R^2$) of 0.9705 indicating a heterogenous GAC surface with a multilayer characteristic. Kinetics experiments fit the pseudo-second order equation with an $R^2$ of 0.9998 implying that chemisorption is the rate-determining step between the organic compounds and GAC at rate constant of $52.53g/mg{\cdot}h$. At low temperatures, the reaction between GAC and organic compounds were found to be spontaneous and exothermic. The conditions for optimization were set to achieve a maximum DOC and TN removal which yielded removal percentages of 94.59% and 80.75% for the DOC and TN, respectively. The optimum parameter values are the following: pH 6.3, 2.46 g of GAC for every 30 mL of graywater sample, 23.39 hrs contact time and $38.6^{\circ}C$.

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

• Membrane and Water Treatment
• /
• v.1 no.4
• /
• pp.283-296
• /
• 2010

During the disinfection of potable water, humic substances present in the solution react with chlorine to form potential carcinogenic compounds. This study evaluates the feasibility of using a submerged membrane photocatalysis reactor (SMPR) process for treatment of humic substances through the characterization of both organic removal efficiency and membrane hydraulic performance. A simple SMPR was operated and led to the removal of up to 83% of the polluting humic matters. Temporal rates of organic removal and membrane fouling were found to decrease with filtration time. Using tighter membrane in the hybrid process resulted in not only higher organic removal, but also more significant membrane fouling. Under the experimental conditions tested, optimum $TiO_2$ concentration for humic removal was found to be 0.6 g/L, and increasing initial pollutant concentration expectedly resulted in a more substantial membrane fouling. The importance of the influent nature and pollutant characteristics in this type of treatment was also assessed as various water sources were tested (model humic acid solution vs. local water containing natural organic matters). Results from this study revealed the promising nature of the SMPR process as an alternative technique for organic removal in the existing water treatment system.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
• /
• v.6 no.4
• /
• pp.263-276
• /
• 2015

This paper deals with the influence of chemical oxygen demand to nitrogen ratio ((COD/N) ratio) on the performance of an membrane bioreactor. We aim at establishing relations between COD/N ratio, organisms' distribution and sludge properties (specific resistance to filtration (SRF) and membrane fouling). It is also essential to define new criteria to characterize the autotrophic microorganisms, as the measurements of apparent removal rates of ammonium seem irrelevant to characterize their specific activity. Two experiments (A and B) have been carried on a 30 L lab scale membrane bioreactor with low COD/N ratio (2.3 and 1.5). The obtained results clearly indicate the role of the COD/N ratio on the biomass distribution and performance of the membrane bioreactor. New specific criteria for characterising the autotrophic microorganisms activity, is also defined as the ratio of maximum ammonium rate to the specific oxygen uptake rate in the endogenous state for autotrophic bacteria which seem to be constant whatever the operating conditions are. They are about 24.5 to 23.8 $gN-NH_4{^+}/gO_2$, for run A and B, respectively. Moreover, the filterability of the biological suspension appear significantly lower, specific resistance to filtration and membrane fouling rate are less than $10^{14}m^{-2}$ and $0.07\;10^{12}m^{-1}.d^{-1}$ respectively, than in conventional MBR confirming the adv < antage of the membrane bioreactor functioning under low COD/N ratio.