• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.15-29
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• 2014

Reverse Osmosis (RO) desalination has gained wide and increasing acceptance around the world as a straightforward undertaking to alleviate the alarming water crisis. An enhanced monitoring of the quality of the water feeding in seawater RO (SWRO) plant through the application of an effective pretreatment option is one of the keys to the success of RO technology in desalination plants. Over the past 10 years, advances in ultrafiltration (UF) membrane technologies in application for water and wastewater treatment have prompted an impetus for using membrane pretreatment in seawater desalination plants. By integrating SWRO plant with UF pretreatment, the rate of membrane fouling can be significantly reduced and thus extend the life of RO membrane. With the growing importance and significant advances attained in UF pretreatment, this review presents an overview of UF pretreatment in SWRO plants. The advantages offered by UF as an alternative of pretreatment option are compared to the existing conventionally used technologies. The current progress made in the integration of SWRO with UF pretreatment is also highlighted. Finally, the recent advances pursued in UF technology is reviewed in order to provide an insight and hence path the way for the future development of this technology.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.207-214
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• 2009

This study examines the optimum filtration conditions in pretreatment of seawater desalination by reverse osmosis. For this purpose, Masan bay seawater is treated through a gravity filter column while $FeCl_3$ is added as coagulant. The conditions of coagulantd osage, media depth, filtration rate, and backwash time are evaluated. The study results show that the filtrate quality improved with increasing coagulant dosage, but head loss rapidly increased. After 4mg/L, the unit filter run volume reduced to less than $200m^3/m^2$. Considering the head loss development, 4mg/L is determined as the optimum dosage. The better filtrate qualities are obtained with depth of 100cm than that of 80cm. The two stage filtration, which outperformed the single stage filtration, is suggested for treatment of Masan bay. The filtration rate of 5m/h is decided as the optimum condition considering the head loss development. At 10m/h, the filtrate quality deteriorated even though the extent was minimal, and head loss increased rapidly. The backwash time of 10 min is decided appropriate.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.555-560
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• 2013

A cost analysis method for pretreament processes of a large scale seawater desalination plant was considered using a cost estimation model, WaTER (Water Treatment Estimation Routine). This model is based on cost functions of U.S. EPA to conduct economic analysis of water treatment facilities. A virtual seawater desalination plant which has pretreatment production capacity of $100,000m^3$ per day was chosen as a model plant. Dual media filtration and microfiltration systems were compared as pretreatment process, and the following reverse osmosis process was modeled. As a result, microfiltration showed a price competitiveness in condition of operating with reverse osmosis process by reducing the loads of water treatment and membrane cleaning despite it's high annual cost.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.449-462
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• 2017

Direct treatment of municipal wastewater by forward osmosis (FO) process was evaluated in terms of water flux decline, reverse salt diffusion, pollutants rejection and concentration efficiency by using synthetic seawater as the draw solution. It was found that when operating in PRO mode (active layer facing the draw solution), although the FO membrane exhibited higher osmotic water flux, more severe flux decline and reverse salt diffusion was also observed due to the more severe fouling of pollutants in the membrane support layer and accompanied fouling enhanced concentration polarization. In addition, although the water flux decline was shown to be lower for the FO mode (active layer facing the feed solution), irreversible membrane fouling was identified in both PRO and FO modes as the water flux cannot be restored to the initial value by physical flushing, highlighting the necessity of chemical cleaning in long-term operation. During the 7 cycles of filtration conducted in the experiments, the FO membrane exhibited considerably high rejection for TOC, COD, TP and $NH_4{^+}-N$ present in the wastewater. By optimizing the volume ratio of seawater draw solution/wastewater feed solution, a concentration factor of 3.1 and 3.7 was obtained for the FO and PRO modes, respectively. The results demonstrated the validity of the FO process for direct treatment of municipal wastewater by using seawater as the draw solution, while facilitating the subsequent utilization of concentrated wastewater for bioenergy production, which may have special implications for the coastline areas.

• 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.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.277-286
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• 2007

The technology of seawater desalination has been received much attentions to solve the problem of water shortage through all over the world. In this study, it attempts to confirm the use-possibility of cellulose triacetate (CTA) for preparation of reverse osmosis membranes which have been highlighted as high efficiency and low energy consumption process for seawater desalination. The effects of casting dope parameters like an acetyl content, solvent, additives on the membrane performance were investigated. It was possible to produce the membranes which have high water flow rate and salt rejection with the increase of acetyl content and dioxane content among various dioxane/acetone ratios. Acetic acid and maleic acid were preferred for additives to produce high performance membranes. It was verified that $HOLLOSEP^{(R)}$ module which is commercialized CTA membrane by TOYOBO Co. can produce stable water production and high-quality water for long-term operation in the practice plants without any chemical treatments.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.182-191
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• 2002

Polyamide reverse osmosis (RO) membrane with thin film composite structure was commercialized for seawater desalination process. Recently, it has been reported that some RO processes for high pressure and recovery leads to reducing in energy cost and pretreatment scale compared with earlier process. The development of energy recovery, pumping device and RO elements with high pressure and rejection made high pressure and recovery process possible. In this study, permeation properties of commercialized seawater RO membrane were investigated under the condition of high pressure and recovery. In the RO sheet membrane test 3.5% NaCl of synthetic seawater was used. The synthetic seawater contained only sodium chloride. In the RO module test, natural seawater was used at Happo Bay, Masan city. As the results, RO membrane with high durability of pressure was better than that with high rejection of seawater for high pressure and recovery process. Seawater rejection of high concentrate tends to be improved by high pressure operation.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.190-199
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• 2020

The utilization of multiple water sources becomes important due to the master plan for development of water supply released by Ministry of Environment, Korea in 2018. In this study, therefore, the analysis of comprehensive effect in blending applicable water sources in Daesan where 100,000 ㎥/d seawater desalination plant will be constructed for industrial use was performed. The increase in mixing ratio of other water sources with seawater reduced salinity up to 50%, but negatively impacted the turbid and organic matter. Lab-scale reverse osmosis performance test also found that membrane fouling was exacerbated in blended water condition. The simulation results of reverse osmosis indicated 39% energy saving on average is expected at the one-to-one blending ratio, however, long-term performance test at the pilot-scale plant is highly required to evaluate the inclusive impact of mixing seawater and other water sources.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Marine Environment & Energy
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.227-238
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to develop a process technology to produce high hardness drinking water which meet drinking water standard, remaining useful minerals like magnesium and calcium in the seawater desalination process while removing the sulfate ions and chloride ions. Seawater have been separated the concentrated seawater and desalted seawater by passing on Reverse Osmosis membrane (RO). Using Nano-filtration membrane (NF), We were prepared primary mineral concentrated water that sodium chloride were not removed. By the operation of electro-dialysis (ED) having ion exchange membrane, we were prepared concentrated mineral water (Mineral enriched desalted water) which the sodium chloride is removed. We have produced the high hardness water to meet the drinking water quality standards by diluting the mineral enriched desalted water with deionized water by RO. Reverse osmosis membranes (RO) can separate dissolved material and freshwater from seawater (deep seawater). The desalination water throughout the second reverse osmosis membrane was completely removed dissolved substances, which dissolved components was removed more than 99.9%, its the hardness concentration was 1 mg/L or less and its chloride concentration was 2.3 mg/L. Since the nano-filtration membrane pore size is $10^{-9}$ m, 50% of magnesium ions and calcium ions can not pass through the nano-filtration membrane, while more than 95% of sodium ions and chloride ions can pass through NF membrane. Nano-filtration membrane could be separated salt components like sodium ion and chloride ions and hardness ingredients like magnesium ions and calcium ions, but their separation was not perfect. Electric dialysis membrane system can be separated single charged ions (like sodium and chloride ions) and double charged ions (like magnesium and calcium ions) depending on its electrical conductivity. Above electrical conductivity 20mS/cm, hardness components (like magnesium and calcium ions) did not removed, on the other hand salt ingredients like sodium and chloride ions was removed continuously. Thus, we were able to concentrate hardness components (like magnesium and calcium ions) using nano-filtration membrane, also could be separated salts ingredients from the hardness concentration water using electrical dialysis membrane system. Finally, we were able to produce a highly concentrated mineral water removed chloride ions, which hardness concentration was 12,600 mg/L and chloride concentration was 2,446 mg/L. By diluting 10 times these high mineral water with secondary RO (Reverse Osmosis) desalination water, we could produce high mineral water suitable for drinking water standards, which chloride concentration was 244 mg/L at the same time hardness concentration 1,260 mg/L. Using the linked process with reverse osmosis (RO)/nano filteration (NF)/electric dialysis (ED), it could be concentrated hardness components like magnesium ions and calcium ions while at the same time removing salt ingredients like chloride ions and sodium ion without heating seawater. Thus, using only membrane as RO, NF and ED without heating seawater, it was possible to produce drinking water containing high hardness suitable for drinking water standard while reducing the energy required to evaporation.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.177-184
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• 2011

Membrane fouling is an unavoidable phenomenon in operation of seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) and major obstacle for economic and efficient operation. When fouling occurs on the membrane surface, the permeate flux is decreased, on the contrary, the trans-membrane pressure (TMP) is increased, therefore operation and maintaining costs and potential damage of membranes are able to the pivotal risks of the process. Chemical cleaning process is essential to prevent interruptions for effective RO membrane filtration process. This study focused on proper chemical cleaning condition for polyamide RO membranes of 4 companies. Several chemical agents were applied for chemical cleaning under numbers of operating conditions. Additionally, a monitoring tool of FEEM as autopsy analysis method is adapted for the prediction of organic bio-fouling.