• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.38 no.6
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• pp.323-328
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• 2016

Pressurized membrane used for side-stream MBR process requires fouling control strategy both for normal and abnormal operation conditions for stable operation of the facilities. In this study, $85m^3/day$ of pilot-scale side-stream MBR process was constructed for the evaluation of fouling mitigation by air bubble injection into the membrane module. In addition, fouling phenomena at abnormal operation conditions of low influent and/or loading rate were also investigated. Injection of air bubble was found to be effective in delaying transmembrane pressure (TMP) increase mainly due to scouring effect on the membrane surface, resulting in expanded filtration cycle at a high flux of $40L/m^2{\cdot}h$ (LMH). At abnormal operation condition, injection of PACl (53 mg/L as Al) into the bioreactor showed 19% reduction of TMP increase. However, inhibition of nitrifying bacteria by continuous PACl injection was observed from batch experiments. In contrast, injection of powdered activated carbon (PAC, 0.6 g/L) was able to maintain the initial TMP of $0.2kg/cm^2$ for 5 days at the abnormal conditions. It may have been caused from the adsorption of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), which was known to be excessively released during growth inhibition condition and act as the major foulants in MBR operations.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.20 no.10
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• pp.1233-1241
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• 2011

The main objective of this experimental investigation was $CH_4$ recovery from biogas generated in municipal and wastewater treatment plant. The polysulfone hollow fiber membrane was prepared in order to investigate the permeation properties of $CH_4$ and $CO_2$. Permeability of $CO_2$ in Polysulfone membrane was 11-fold higher than of $CH_4$ gas. A membrane pilot plant for upgrading biogas was constructed and operated at a municipal wastewater treatment plant. The raw biogas contained 66 ~ 68 Vol % $CH_4$, the balance being mainly $CO_2$. The effect of the operating pressure of feed and permeate side and feed flowrate on $CH_4$ recovery concentration and efficiency were investigated with double stage membrane pilot plant. The $CH_4$ concentration in the retentate stream was raised in these tests to 93 Vol % $CH_4$.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.297-311
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• 2016

Modeling and simulation of air humidification by hollow fiber membrane contactors are investigated in the current study. A computational fluid dynamic model was developed by solving the k-epsilon turbulence 2D Navier-Stokes equations as well as mass conservation equations for steady-state conditions in membrane contactors. Finite element method is used for the study of the air humidification under different operating conditions, with a focus on the humidity density, total mass transfer flux and velocity field. There has been good agreement between simulation results and experimental data obtained from literature. It is found that the enhancement of air stream decreases the outlet humidity from 0.392 to 0.340 (module 1) and from 0.467 to 0.337 (module 2). The results also indicated that there has been an increase in air velocity in the narrow space of shell side compared with air velocity wide space of shell side. Also, irregular arrangement has lower dead zones than regular arrangement which leads to higher water flux.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.327-332
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• 2021

The use of membranes for MBRWG (Membrane Bioreactor for Waste Gas) treatment can provide highly selective separation of a waste gas stream followed by effective biological removal. MBRWG have several potential advantages, among which the most distinctive one is separation of gas and liquid phases at each side of membrane potentially allowing the optimal biomass control toward effective biodegradation of target gases as well as biofilm activation. This advantage becomes especially favorable for removal of hydrophobic toxic gases, such as xylene, by MBRWG systems, because the mass transfer, the toxicity, and thereby the biodegradation of hydrophobic gas treatment requires sensitive handling of liquid stream and water control near biofilm. Among various membranes for MBRWG treatment, PDMS-hollow fiber membranes provide the high gas mass transfer. Despite lower specific surface areas, capillary type membranes are also applied current MBRWG studies. In addition to the main application of membranes as biofilm supporter in MBRWG systems, there can be another application of membranes in a posterior process for removal of residual gases or dusts emitted from conventional biological waste gas treatment processes.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.204-212
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• 2006

A numerical analysis was carried out for separation of carbon dioxide from carbon dioxide/nitrogen gas mixture by a polyethersulfone hollow fiber membrane which has shown a good stability against plasticization by carbon dioxide and an excellent separation efficiency fur carbon dioxide from its gas mixture. A computer program for carbon dioxide separation was developed using the Compaq Visual Fortran 6.6 software. Governing module equations were thought to be an initial-value problem and the nonlinear ordinary differential equations were simultaneously solved using the Runge-Kutta-Verner fifth-order method. From results of numerical analysis, the carbon dioxide partial pressure of the feed stream, the pressure ratio of the feed side to the permeate side and the feed gas residence time at the inside of a membrane were found to be very important factors to affect the permeation characteristics of carbon dioxide.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.113-123
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• 2017

This study investigated effects of physical and chemical cleaning methods on the initial flux recovery of fouled membrane in membrane distillation process. A laboratory scale direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) experiment was performed to treat digested livestock wastewater with 3.89 mg/L suspended solids, 874.7 mg/L COD, 543.7 mg/L nitrogen, 15.6 mg/L total phosphorus, and pH of 8.6. A hydrophobic PVDF membrane with an average pore size of $0.22{\mu}m$ and a porosity of 75 % was installed inside a direct contact type membrane distillation module. The temperature difference between feed and permeate side was maintained at $40^{\circ}C$ with the feed and permeate stream velocity of 0.18 m/s. The results showed that the permeate flux decreased from $22.1L{\cdot}m^{-2}{\cdot}hr^{-1}$ to $19.0L{\cdot}m^{-2}{\cdot}hr^{-1}$ after 75 hours of distillation. The fouled membrane was cleaned first by physical flushing and consecutively by chemicals with NaOCl and citric acid. After the physical cleaning the flux was recovered to 92 % as compared with the initial clean water flux of the virgin membrane. Then 94 % of the flux was recovered after cleaning by 2,000 ppm NaOCl for 90 minutes and finally 97 % of flux recovered after 3 % citric acid for 90 minutes. SEM-EDS and FT-IR analysis results presented that the foulants on the membrane surface were removed effectively after each cleaning step. The contact angle measurement showed that the hydrophobicity of the membrane surface was also restored gradually after each cleaning step to reach nearly the same hydrophobicity level as the virgin membrane.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.37 no.11
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• pp.607-618
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• 2015

This study was conducted to suggest hydraulic modification for improving evenness of inlet flow distribution into side stream type low-pressure MF (microfiltration) module using CFD (computational fluid dynamics) simulation and PIV (particle image velocimetry) techniques. From the results of CFD simulation for various typed inlet structure, it was investigated that installing internal orifice baffle in inlet the distribution channel could improve the evenness of inlet flow distribution over about 40%. Also, from the results of PIV measurements which were carried out for verifying the CFD simulation, it was observed that the momentum of the water body coming from the opposite side of the inlet was relatively larger. This momentum would generate strong shear force in the near of inlet side wall. On the other hands, occurrence of dead zone and eddy flow was confirmed in the opposite side.

• Korean Membrane Journal
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2006

In semiconductor industries, dissolved oxygen is one of the most undesirable contaminants of ultrapure water. A method for dissolved oxygen removal (DOR) consists in the use of polymeric hollow fibres, loaded with a catalyst and fed with a reducing agent such as hydrogen. In this work, PVDF hollow fibres loaded with Pd were characterized by means of perporometry, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX). The hollow fibre analyzed shows a five-layer structure with remarkable morphological differences. An estimation of pore diameters and their distribution was performed giving a mean pore diameter of 100 nm. The permeance and selectivity of the fibres were measured using $H_2,\;N_2,\;O_2$ as single gases, at different operating conditions. An $H_2$ permeance of $37 mmol/m^2s$ was measured and $H_2/O_2$ and $H_2/N_2$ selectivities of ca. 3 were obtained. $H_2$ permeance was 1/3 when a water stream flows in the shell side. Catalytic fibrebehaviour was simulated using a mathematical model for a loop membrane reactor, considering only $O_2$ and $H_2$ diffusive transport inside the membrane and their catalytic reaction. Dimensionless parameters such as the Thiele modulus are employed to describe the system behaviour. The model agrees well with the experimental reaction data.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.22 no.7
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• pp.1273-1284
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• 2000

In this study, ultrafiltration was performed to remove humic acid from aqueous solution. Since the effects of system variables on the ultrafiltration were tangled with non-linearly. Response Surface Methodology(RSM) was used to know optimum conditions of ultrafiltration process, relations among system variables, and the effects of system variables such as pressure difference across the membrane, concentration of humic acid, and feed flow rates. As concentrations of humic acid were 10ppm, 40ppm, and 70ppm in feed stream, permeation fluxes were 2.56, 2.27, and $2.10({\times}10^{-2}cc/cm^2{\cdot}min)$ respectively ; in other words, permeation fluxes of 10ppm, 40ppm and 70ppm feed concentration decreased by 17.7%, 26.7% and 32.2% of pure water permeation flux respectively. Concentration of humic acid in permeate side were 0.5ppm, 1.2 ppm, and 2.1ppm respectively. When pressure difference(${\Delta}P$) increased from 1atm to 2atm and 3atm, permeation fluxes of 40ppm feed concentration increased by 66% and 152% of permeation rate at 1atm respectively. However, concentrations of humic acid in permeate side increased from 0.5ppm to 1.5ppm and 3.5ppm. RSM showed that the optimum condition of system variables is 38.5~40ppm of humic acid concentration in feed stream, 30~30.7cc/min of feed flow rate, and 2atm of pressure difference.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.310-319
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• 2005

This paper describes the preliminary study on the development of multi-stage membrane demonstration plant for removal of carbon dioxide from flue gas stream being emitted from LNG boiler in thermal power generation plant. The prerequisite requirement is to design and develop the membrane process producing a $99\%\;CO_2$ with $90\%$ recovery from LNG flue gas of 1,000 $Nm^3$/day. Asymmetric polyethersulfone hollow fiber membranes and membrane modules developed in this laboratory[1] were used in this study. Using the permeation data for the hollow fiber membranes, modelling on the membrane module and multi-stage membrane process was done to meet the requirement condition of the process design. The effects of the operating pressure of feed and permeate side and feed concentration on $CO_2$ purity and recovery were investigated experimentally with the developed hollow fiber modules. These experimental results matched well with theoretical modelling results.