• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.143-155
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• 2010

Fouling by inorganic scales needs to be prevented to effectively operate sea water reverse osmosis(SWRO) membrane systems. The extents of inorganic scaling with different array designs including one-pass, two-pass and several hybrid designs were evaluated using seawater from southern sea near the city of Chang-Won. The used methods for evaluation were Stiff and Davis Index(S&DSI) calculation and several laboratory experiments. The formation potential of inorganic scale fouling was quite great under the examined conditions, which was confirmed by the laboratory experimental results. The inorganic scale was not avoidable fouling if any anti-scaling measures were not applied. The RO showed decreased flux under the scale formation conditions. The increases in S&DSI from 1.43 to 5 made small decreases in flux, which indicated that formation of inorganic scales had more substantial effects on RO flux than amount of inorganic scales.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.115-125
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• 2020

This study was aimed to examine inorganic fouling and fouling reduction method in direct contact membrane distillation(DCMD) process. Synthetic seawater of NaCl solution with CaCO₃ and CaSO₄ was used for this purpose. It was found in this study that both CaCO₃ and CaSO₄ precipitates formed at the membrane surface. More fouling was observed with CaSO₄(anhydrite) and CaSO₄·0.5H₂O(bassanite) than CaSO₄·2H₂O(gypsum). CaCO₃ and gypsum were detected at the membrane surface when concentrates of SWRO(seawater reverse osmosis) were treated by the DCMD process, while gypsum was found with MED(multi effect distillation) concentrates. Air backwash(inside to out) was found more effective in fouling reduction than air scouring.

• Transactions of the KSME C: Technology and Education
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.69-73
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• 2013

This study is about the secondary concentration technology using electrodialysis process for minimum discharge and maximize recovery ratio from seawater desalination by reverse osmosis process. The experimental method adopted the constant voltage driving method and, concentrated/desalination volume capacity ratio changes, voltage changes and electrolyte types. Multi-ion membrane is used, aiming to derive conditions to minimize the TDS concentration of desalination water, to minimize the volumes of secnodary concentraion water and minimizing the power efficiency. The results of this study are as follows. The optimal ratio of concentraion/desalination volume is 1:5, the final TDS concentration of desalinated water is 5.32g/l, the final secnodary concentrated water salinity is 17.07% and electric energy demands of desalinated water is $16.74kWh/m^3$.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2018

Recently, interest in the development of alternative water resources has been increasing rapidly due to environmental pollution and depletion of water resources. In particular, seawater desalination has been attracting the most attention as alternative water resources. As seawater desalination consumes a large amount of energy due to high operating pressure, many researches have been conducted to improve energy efficiency such as energy recovery device (ERD). Consequently, this study aims to compare the energy efficiency of RO process according to ERD of isobaric type which is applied in scientific control pilot plant process of each $100m^3/day$ scale based on actual RO product water. As a result, it was confirmed that efficiency, mixing rate, and permeate conductivity were different depending on the size of the apparatus even though the same principle of the ERD was applied. It is believed that this is caused by the difference in cross-sectional area of the contacted portion for pressure transfer inside the ERD. Therefore, further study is needed to confirm the optimum conditions what is applicable to the actual process considering the correlation with other factors as well as the factors obtained from the previous experiments.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.285-291
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• 2011

Membrane fouling is an unavoidable phenomenon and major obstacle in the economic and efficient operation under sea water reverse osmosis (SWRO). When fouling occurs on the membrane surface, the permeate quantity and quality decrease, the trans-membrane pressure (TMP) and operation costs increase, and the membrane may be damaged. Therefore, chemical cleaning process is important to prevent permeate flow from decreasing in RO membrane filtration process. This study focused on proper chemical cleaning condition for Shuaibah RO plant in Saudi Arabia. Several chemical agents were used for chemical cleaning at different contact time and concentrations of chemicals. Also autopsy analysis was performed using LOI, FT-IR, FEEM, SEM and EDX for assessment of fouling. Specially, FEEM analysis method was thought as analyzing and evaluating tool available for selection of the first applied chemical cleaning dose to predict potential organic fouling. Also, cleaning time should be considered by the condition of RO membrane process since the cleaning time depends on the membrane fouling rate. If the fouling exceeds chemical cleaning guideline, to perfectly remove the fouling, certainly, the chemical cleaning is increased with membrane fouling rate influenced by raw water properties, pre-treatment condition and the point of the chemical cleaning operation time. Also choice of cleaning chemicals applied firstly is important.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.271-278
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• 2016

Recently, reverse osmosis (RO) is the most common process for seawater desalination. A common problem in both RO and thermal processes is the high energy requirements for seawater desalination. The one energy saving method when utilizing the osmotic power is utilizing pressure retarded osmosis (PRO) process. The PRO process can be used to operate hydro turbines for electrical power production or can be used directly to supplement the energy required for RO desalination system. This study was carried out to evaluate the performance of both single-stage PRO process and two-stage PRO process using RO concentrate for a draw solution and RO permeate for a feed solution. The major results, were found that increase of the draw and feed solution flowrate lead to increase of the production of power density and water permeate. Also, comparison between CDCF and CDDF configuration showed that the CDDF was better than CDCF for stable operation of PRO process. In addition, power density of two-stage PRO was lower than the one of single-stage. However, net power of two-stage PRO was higher than the one of single-stage PRO.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.171-186
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• 2020

Purpose: The purpose of this study is conducting of predictive models that considered multicollinearity of independent variables in order to carry out more efficient and reliable predictions about differential pressure in seawater reverse osmosis. Methods: The main variables of each RO system are extracted through factor analysis. Common variables are derived through comparison of RO system # 1 and RO system # 2. In order to carry out the prediction modeling about the differential pressure, which is the target variable, we constructed the prediction model reflecting the regression analysis, the artificial neural network, and the support vector machine in R package, and figured out the superiority of the model by comparing RMSE. Results: The number of factors extracted from factor analysis of RO system #1 and RO system #2 is same. And the value of variability(% Var) increased as step proceeds according to the analysis procedure. As a result of deriving the average RMSE of the models, the overall prediction of the SVM was superior to the other models. Conclusion: This study is meaningful in that it has been conducting a demonstration study of considering the multicollinearity of independent variables. Before establishing a predictive model for a target variable, it would be more accurate predictive model if the relevant variables are derived and reflected.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.755-764
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• 2016

Pressure retarded osmosis (PRO) processes can be implemented on a number of water types, using different technologies and achieving various power outcomes. In this study, Sewage facility effluent was used for feed solution of PRO and synthetic NaCl water for draw solution. This study was conducted to investigate effect of water quality of pretreatment on power density and flux decline in PRO process. The results show that organic and particulate foulants have to be removed for more stable operation. Flourescence technique with EEM enables to investigate the chemical properties of aquatic organic matter by extracting spectral information. Humic/fulvic matters and soluble microbial by-products were analyzed as the most affecting factors on the PRO performance. As a result of analyzing the whole system based on the energy consumption of the unit process, specific energy consumption(SEC) of the applicable technology for PRO pre-treatment should be about $0.2kWh/m^3$ or less.

• Journal of Applied Reliability
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.114-121
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• 2018

Purpose: This study proposes a process for evaluating the preventive maintenance policy for a system with degradation characteristics and for calculating the appropriate preventive maintenance cycle using time- and condition-based maintenance. Methods: First, the collected data is divided into the maintenance history lifetime and degradation lifetime, and analysis datasets are extracted through preprocessing. Particle filter algorithm is used to estimate the degradation lifetime from analysis datasets and prior information is obtained using LSE. The suitability and cost of the existing preventive maintenance policy are each evaluated based on the degradation lifetime and by using a minimum repair block replacement model of time-based maintenance. Results: The process is applied to the degradation of the reverse osmosis (RO) membrane in a seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) plant to evaluate the existing preventive maintenance policy. Conclusion: This method can be used for facilities or systems that undergo degradation, which can be evaluated in terms of cost and time. The method is expected to be used in decision-making for devising the optimal preventive maintenance policy.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.285-292
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• 2021

Osmotic power is to produce electric power by using the chemical potential of two flows with the difference of salinity. Water permeates through a semipermeable membrane from a low concentration feed solution to a high concentration draw solution due to osmotic pressure. In a pressure retarded osmosis (PRO) process, river water and wastewater are commonly used as low salinity feed solution, whereas seawater and brine from the SWRO plant are employed as draw solution. During the PRO process using wastewater effluent as feed solution, PRO membrane fouling is usually caused by the convective or diffusive transport of PRO which is the most critical step of PRO membrane in order to prevent membrane fouling. The main objective of this study is to assess the PRO membrane fouling reduction by pretreatment to remove organic matter using coagulation-UF membrane process. The experimental results obtained from the pretreatment test showed that the optimum ferric chloride and PAC dosage for removal of organic matter applied for the coagulation and adsorption process was 50 mg/L as FeCl₃ (optimum pH 5.5). Coagulation-UF pretreatment process was higher removal efficiency of organic matter, as also resulting in the substantial improvement of water flux of PRO membrane.