• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.633-641
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• 2015

Waterborne infectious disease is induced by several pathogenic microbes such as bacteria, viruses and protozoans, and the cases caused by viral infection is currently increasing. Water treatment process could reduce the number of virus in the water, but there were many difficulties to completely remove the virus particles from water. Therefore, the membrane separation technology which was reported to effectively remove pollutants from raw water has attracted increasing attention and demand. Since its efficiency has been introduced, demands for evaluation method toward the membrane filtration process are increasing. However, progression of the method development is slow due to the difficulties in cultivation of several waterborne viruses from animal models or cell culture system. To overcome the difficulties, we used adenovirus, one of the commonly isolated pathogenic waterborne viruses which can grow in cell culture system in vitro. The adenovirus used in this study was identified as human adenovirus C strain. The adenovirus was spiked in the raw water and passed through the microfiltration membrane produced by Econity, a Korean membrane company, and then the viral removal rate was evaluated by real-time PCR. In the results, the amount of virus in the filtered water was decreased approximately by 5 log scale. Because coagulant treatment has been known to reduce filtering function of the membrane by inducing fouling, we also investigated whether there was any interference of coagulant. In the results, we confirmed that coagulant treatment did not show significant interference on microfiltration membrane. In this study, we found that waterborne virus can be effectively removed by membrane filtration system. In particular, here we also suggest that real-time PCR method can rapidly, sensitively and quantitatively evaluate the removal rate of virus. These results may provide a standard method to qualifying membrane filtration processes.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.139-146
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• 2013

A process diagnosis method for membrane water treatment plant was developed using a constant flux membrane fouling model. This diagnosis method can be applied to a real-field membrane-based water treatment plant as an early alarming system for membrane fouling. The constant flux membrane fouling model was based on the simplest equation form to describe change in trans-membrane pressure (TMP) during the filtration cycle from a literature. The model was verified using a pilot-scale microfiltraton (MF) plant with two commercial MF membrane modules (72 m2 of membrane area). The predicted TMP data were produced using the model, where the modeling parameters were obtained by the least square method using the early plant data and modeling equations. The diagnosis was carried out by comparing the predicted TMP data (as baseline) and real plant data. As a result of the case study, the diagnsis method worked pretty well to predict the early points where fouling started to occur.

• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
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• 1999.10a
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• pp.39-39
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• 1999

Membrane separation technology has become a more attractive technology on waste water treatment and water recycle in recent years. On this application, membrane does not take main part of treatment, such as decomposition or handling of organic matter in the waste water, but it is very important supporting method in the total system. Activated sludge is most popular method as main part. In the system , membrane works as a separator to obtain clear water after biological treatment, by which the permeate could be released, recycled or applied to further additional treatment, instead of conventional sedimentation, coagulation and sand filtration. We would like to introduce our system cases for waste water treatment and water recycle, in which membrane separation technology works. In most of cases, membranes are applied to solid- liquid separation of activated sludge. Our experiences will be introduced as following items.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.507-520
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• 2016

The effect of ZnO on cellulose acetate in the removal of benzophenone-3 (BP-3) was investigated. The benzophenone-3 (BP-3) which is an endocrine disrupting chemical (EDC) was completely removed (100%) from the drinking water using Cellulose Acetate (CA) and zinc oxide (ZnO) composite membranes. The membranes were prepared by DIPS method and the filtration experiments were conducted by dead end filtration unit. The macrostructure of the membrane were studied by ATR-IR and XRD Spectra's. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) and Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were used to study the micro properties of the membranes. The laboratory experiments such as water uptake study and pure water flux performed to confirm the increasing hydrophilicity. The enhancing hydrophilicity was confirmed with respect to higher the concentration of nanoparticles. Evaluation of BP-3 removal was carried in different experimental conditions, such as, different Trans membrane pressure and different concentration of feed. The membrane with low pressure showed better performance by rejecting 100% of BP-3. However, 1 ppm, 3 ppm and 6 ppm of feed solution was used and among them 3 ppm of feed solution gives 100% rejection. The ZnO nanoparticales enhances the performance of CA membrane by showing maximum rejection.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.171-179
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• 2014

In this study, a novel method was proposed to test the integrity of water treatment system specifically equipped with membrane filtration process. We applied the silica particles coated with a fluorescent agent (rhodamine B isothiocyanate) as a surrogate to detect a membrane process integrity and evaluate the reliability of effluent quality in the system. Additionally, a series of experiments was conducted to evaluate the sensitivity of the method through the laboratory scale experiment. The laboratory scale experiments showed that the feasibility of application of proposed method to detect a breach or damaged part on the membrane surface. However, the sensitivity on predicting the area of a breach was significantly influenced by the testing conditions such as a concentration of surrogate, filtration flux, and detection time. The lowest error of predicting the area of breach was 3.5% at the testing condition of surrogate concentration of 80 mg/L injected with flux of $20L/m^2/hr$ for 10 minutes of detection time for the breach having the actual area of $7.069mm^2$. However, the error of estimation was increased at the small breach with area less than $0.785mm^2$. A future study will be conducted to estimate a damaged area with more accuracy and precision.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.51-71
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• 2017

Antimicrobial polyethersulfone ultrafiltration membranes containing zerovalent iron ($Fe^0$) and magnetite ($Fe_3O_4$) nanoparticles were synthesized via phase inversion method using polyethersulfone (PES) as membrane material and nano-iron as nanoparticle materials. Zerovalent iron nanoparticles (nZVI) were prepared by the reduction of iron ions with borohydride applying an inert atmosphere by using $N_2$ gases. The magnetite nanoparticles (nMag) were prepared via co-precipitation method by adding a base to an aqueous mixture of $Fe^{3+}$ and $Fe^{2+}$ salts. The synthesized nanoparticles were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray powder diffraction, and dynamic light scattering analysis. Moreover, the properties of the synthesized membranes were characterized by scanning electron microscopy energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy. The PES membranes containing the nZVI or nMag were examined for antimicrobial characteristics. Moreover, amount of iron run away from the PES composite membranes during the dead-end filtration were tested. The results showed that the permeation flux of the composite membranes was higher than the pristine PES membrane. The membranes containing nano-iron showed good antibacterial activity against gram-negative bacteria (Escherichia coli). The composite membranes can be successfully used for the domestic wastewater filtration to reduce membrane biofouling.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.35-49
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• 2012

In membrane processes, various agents are used to enhance, protect, and recover membrane performance. Applying these agents in membrane modification could potentially be considered as a simple method to improve membrane performance without additional process. Citric acid (CI) and sodium bisulfite (SB) are two chemicals that are widely used in membrane feed water pretreatment and cleaning processes. In this work, preadsorptions of CI and SB were developed as simple methods for polysulfone ultrafiltration membrane modification. It was found that hydrogen bonding and Van Der Waals attraction could be responsible for the adsorptions of CI and SB onto membranes, respectively. After modification with CI or SB, the membrane surfaces became more hydrophilic. Membrane permeability improved when modified by SB while decreased a little when modified by CI. The modified membranes had an increase in PEG and BSA rejections and better antifouling properties with higher flux recovery ratios during filtration of a complex pharmaceutical wastewater. Moreover, membrane chlorine tolerance was elevated after modification with either agent, as shown by the mechanical property measurements.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.31-39
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• 2020

Anaerobic membrane bioreactor (AnMBR) treatment has been widely studied in recent years because of the potential for production of bio-energy from wastewater and energy-positive operation of wastewater treatment plants. Several AnMBR systems, including those that incorporate ceramic membranes, take advantage of enhanced water permeability and low membrane fouling potentials. Given that differences in the ceramic membranes may influence the results of AnMBR studies, relevant details are discussed in this review, which focuses on the profiles of common ceramic membranes used in AnMBR, treatment and filtration performances of different anaerobic ceramic membrane bioreactors (AnCMBRs), and the membrane fouling mitigation methods available for effective AnCMBRs operation. The aim of this review is to provide a comprehensive summary of AnCMBR performance, feed wastewater characteristics, operating conditions, and the methods available for effective fouling mitigation.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.461-469
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• 2019

In the present work, we present a new effective hydrophilicity modifier for polysulfone (PSf) membrane. Firstly, amphiphilic nanocellulose (ANC) with different substitution degrees (SD) was synthesized by esterification reaction with nanocellulose (NC) and dodecyl succinic anhydride (DDSA). The SD and morphology of ANC were characterized by titration method and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Then, the polysulfone (PSf)/ANC blend membranes were prepared via an immersion phase inversion method. The influence of SD on the morphology, structure and performances of PSf/ANC blend membrane were carefully investigated by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscope (SEM), mechanical property test, contact angle measuring instrument and filtration experiment. The results showed that the mechanical property, hydrophilicity and anti-fouling property of all the PSf/ANC blend membranes were higher than those of pure PSf membrane and PSf/NC membrane, and the membrane properties were increased with the increasing of SD values. As ANC-4 has the highest SD value, PSf/ANC-4 membrane exhibited the optimal membrane properties. In conclusion, the prepared ANC can be used as an additive to improve the hydrophilicity and anti-fouling properties of polysulfone (PSf) membrane.

• 한국생물공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2000.04a
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• pp.422-423
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• 2000

The protozoan parasite Giardia lamblia has been implicated as the causative agents of many outbreaks of waterborne intestinal illness. Accurate evaluation of Giardia lamblia removal in water treatment process requires a reliable method for measuring the concentrations of these pathogens in water. The relative recovery of Giardia cysts was assessed for seeded samples of distilled water. Cysts preparation was done by encystment in vitro. Membrane filtration was evaulated with cellulose acetate, polycarbonate, polypropylene, polyethersulfone, nylon membranes. Elution conditions were varied to improve cyst recovery.