• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.8
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• pp.105-114
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• 2018

Membrane fouling in EC-MBR (Electro-Coagulation aided Membrane Bio-Reactor) processes was evaluated according to the operating parameters, such as current density and contact time. In addition, the fouling mechanism was investigated. Compared to the control (i.e., no electro-coagulation), membrane fouling for filtration of the activated sludge suspension after electro-coagulation was reduced significantly. Membrane fouling was improved further when the contact time was doubled under a low current density of $2.5A/m^2$. On the other hand, membrane fouling was not mitigated further, as expected, even though the contact time was doubled from 12 to 24 hr. at a current density of $10A/m^2$. This indicates that the overall decrease in membrane fouling is a function of the product of the current density and contact time. The particle size of the activated sludge flocs after electro-coagulation was changed slightly, which means that the membrane fouling reduction was not attributed to a larger particle size resulting from electro-coagulation. The experimental confirmed that the dynamic membrane made from aluminum hydroxide, Al(OH)3, and/or aluminum phosphate, Al(PO4), which had been formed during the electro-coagulation, played a key role on the reduction of membrane fouling. The dynamic membrane prevents the particles in the feed solution from deposition to the membrane pores and cake layers. Dynamic membrane formation as a result of electro-coagulation plays a critical role in the mitigation of membrane fouling in EC-MBR.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.669-676
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• 2007

The raw water was fractionated into hydrophobic (HPO), transphilic (TPI), and hydrophilic portions (HPI) using XAD resins. The raw water DOC contains 39% of hydrophilics, 43% of hydrophobics, and 18% of transphilics. When fractionated NOM (natural organic matter) was passed through hydrophilic membrane with 100 kDa, hydrophobic portion (HPO) caused the most fouling and hydrophilic portion (HPI) caused the least fouling. This could be related to size and adsorption capability of organics. Small sized organics would pass through membrane pores, but large sized organics would be attracted to either membrane pores or surface, which led to the fouling. An effect of membrane pore size on membrane fouling is related to the availability of organics at membrane pores. As the pore size became larger, the more organics were transported into the membrane pore. Some organics caused pore blocking, and others caused pore adsorption, which resulted in membrane fouling. Membrane material is also important for membrane fouling. More fouling occurred at hydrophobic membrane than hydrophilic membrane regardless of its pore size. Hydrophobic interaction caused more fouling at hydrophobic membrane.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.91-98
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• 2006

There is a possibility of the production of the air bubbles in membrane pores due to the reduction in pressure during membrane filtration. The effect of fine air bubbles from dissolved gases on microfiltration was investigated in the submerged membrane bio-reactor (SMBR). The $R_{air}$ (air bubble resistance) was defined as the filtration resistance due to the air bubbles formed from the gasification of dissolved gases. From the results of filtration tests using pure water with changes in the dissolved oxygen concentration, the air bubbles from dissolved gases were confirmed to act as a foulant and; thus, increase the filtration resistance. The standard pore blocking and cake filtration models, SPBM and CFM, respectively, were applied to investigate the mechanism of air bubble fouling on a hollow fiber membrane. However, the application of the SPBM and CFM were limited in explaining the mechanism due to the properties of air bubble. With a simple comparison of the different filtration resistances, the $R_{air}$ portion was below 1% of the total filtration resistance during sludge filtration. Therefore, the air bubbles from dissolved gases would only be a minor foulant in the SMBR. However, under the conditions of a high gasification rate from dissolved gases, the effect of air bubble fouling should be considered in microfiltration.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.263-271
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• 2018

The objective of this work was to analyze organic matter removal, nitrification, biomass growth and membrane fouling in a submerged flat-sheet membrane bioreactor, fed with synthetic wastewater, of similar composition to the effluents generated in a fish meal industry. After biomass acclimatization with saline conditions of 12 gNaCl/L and COD/N ratio of 15 in the bioreactor, results showed that the organic matter removal was higher than 90%, for all organic loading rates (0.8, 1, 1.33 and $2gCOD/L{\cdot}d$) and nitrogen loading rates (0.053, 0.067, 0.089 and $0.133gN/L{\cdot}d$) tested during the study. However, nitrification was only carried out with the lowest OLR ($0.8gCOD/L{\cdot}d$) and NLR ($0.053gN/L{\cdot}d$). An excessive concentration of organic matter in the wastewater appears as a limiting factor to this process' operating conditions, where nitrification values of 65% were reached, including nitrogen assimilation to produce biomass. The analysis of membrane fouling showed that the bio-cake formation at the membrane surface is the most impacting mechanism responsible of this phenomenon and it was demonstrated that organic and nitrogen loading rates variations affected membrane fouling rate.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.425-436
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• 2021

In this study, chemically enhanced steam cleaning(CESC) was applied as a novel and efficient method for the control of organic and inorganic fouling in ceramic membrane filtration. The constant filtration regression model and the resistance in series model(RISM) were used to investigate the membrane fouling mechanisms. For total filtration, the coefficient of determination(R²) with an approximate value of 1 was obtained in the intermediate blocking model which is considered as the dominant contamination mechanism. In addition, most of the coefficient values showed similar values and this means that the complex fouling was formed during the filtration period. In the RISM, R _c/R _f increased about 4.37 times in chemically enhanced steam cleaning compared to physical backwashing, which implies that the internal fouling resistance was converted to cake layer resistance, so that the membrane fouling hardly to be removed by physical backwashing could be efficiently removed by chemically enhanced steam cleaning. The results of flux recovery rate showed that high-temperature steam may loosen the structure of the membrane cake layer due to the increase in diffusivity and solubility of chemicals and finally enhance the cleaning effect. As a consequence, it is expected that chemically enhanced steam cleaning can drastically improve the efficiency of membrane filtration process when the characteristics of the foulant are identified.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.371-380
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• 2013

Though MBR process has many advantages, the greatest risk factors in operating MBR process are occurrence of membrane fouling and decrease of flux. It is very difficult to find exact mechanism due to complex influence by many effects, although there have been recently many studies of membrane fouling. The purposes of this study are firstly evaluating bioreactor of lab-scale and micro-filtration hollow fiber membrane, secondly investigating correlation between foulants affecting membrane performance and membrane fouling, and lastly evaluating various parameters affecting fouling and applicability of membrane fouling reducer. This study found that TMP was increasing rapidly and showed 0.32 bar and the average of flux was 88 LMH. EPS concentration tends not to change much above MLSS concentration (6,000 mg/L). However, EPS concentration variation is wide below MLSS concentration (6,000 mg/L). Also, from results of membrane surface condition and element analysis using SEM/EDX, carbon and fluorine were founded to be the highest percentage in membrane because of characteristics of membrane material. In operating continuously, inorganic fouling was generated by increase of these inorganic substances such as $Al^{3+}$ and $Mg^{2+}$. Lastly, the best filtration performance was obtained for 0.03 mg MFR/mg MLSS by results of particle size, zeta potential, $SCOD_{cr}$, EPS and MLSS concentration.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Systems Engineering
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.49-56
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• 2014

Since steam generator (SG) tubes are located in the boundary between the primary and secondary systems of nuclear power plant (NPP), the SG is one of the most important components in the aspects of the safety of NPP. The magnetite ($Fe_30_4$) deposition, so-called fouling, is generally known as a major aging mechanism of CANDU SGs, and this aging mechanism makes the heat transfer efficiency between the primary and secondary systems of NPP reduced. Therefore, the development of SG safety assessment system which can evaluate the effect of the SG aging degradation mechanism should be needed for safety of NPP. In this study, through the suggestion of the guideline for SG safety assessment, it is possible to strengthen the basic of establishing the effective SG aging management technique. The SG safety assessment is carried out by CATHENA(Canadian Algorithm for THErmalhydraulic Network Analysis). It is possible to determine the integrity of SGs by identifying the main safety parameters which can be changed by the aging degradation of CANDU SGs.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.559-567
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• 2013

In recent years, NF (nanofiltration) membrane has been receiving great attention for hardness removal and has begun to replace traditional lime soda ash softening process, particularly in Florida, USA, mainly due to less sludge production and easy operation. This study aimed to provide detailed surface characteristics of various commercial NF membranes by performing sophisticated surface analysis, which would help more fundamentally understand the performance of NF membranes. More specifically, a total of 7 NF membranes from top NF/RO manufacturers in the world were examined for basic performance tests, surface analysis, and fouling potential assessment. The results demonstrated that NF membranes are classified into two groups in terms of surface zeta potential; they are highly negatively charged ones, and neutral and/or less negatively charged ones. Their hydrophobicities, measured by contact angle, varied from hydrophilic to slightly hydrophobic ones. The AFM measurements showed various surface roughness, ranging from 23 nm (smooth) to 162 nm (rough) of average peak height. Lab-scale fouling experiments were performed using feedwater obtained from conventional water treatment plants in the province of Korea, and their results attempted to correlate to surface characteristics of NF membranes. However, unlike typical RO membranes, no clear correlation was found in this study, indicating that fouling mechanisms of NF membrane may be different from those of typical RO membranes, and both cake deposition and pore blocking mechanisms should be considered simultaneously.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.28 no.10
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• pp.1046-1054
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• 2006

The raw water DOC contained 39.3% of hydrophilics, 42.9% of hydriophobic, and 17.8% of transphilic. The hydrophobic fraction in this raw water was mostly fulvic acid. Fulvic acid comprised of 62% and the rest was humic acid(38%). There was more carboxylic acid functional group(64%) than phenolic group(36%). HPI-N and HPI-C comprised of 17% and 22% in the hydrophilic portion, respectively. The fouling mechanisms on the membrane surface and into its porous structure were analyzed in terms of several kinetic models. In order to analyze the fouling kinetics, the various kinetic models described in this paper were used to fit the experimental results. The kinetic models and kinetic constants obtained for each operation condition. The permeate flux was rapidly declined by simultaneous pore blocking and cake formation. Also, the permeate flux declined with decreasing internal pore size resulted from organic deposition into the membrane pore. The results of the membrane fouling test using UF membrane according to NOM fractions. HPI-N caused more fouling than HPI-C. Humic acid caused more fouling than fulvic acid probably due to higher adsorption capacity. Since humic acid has higher adsorption capacity than fulvic acid, it would be more adsorbed onto the membrane pores.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.211-216
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• 2018

Separation technology combining adsorption and membrane is expected to be applied in many fields such as water treatment. In this fusion technique, a functional carbon membrane having a carbon whisker grown on the surface of the membrane was developed to inhibit membrane fouling, which is a problem in the membrane separation process. In this study, to elucidate the mechanism of manufacturing the functional carbon membrane, the membrane was pretreated with the polymer latex of each mixing ratio and the membrane was formed by the CVD (Chemical Vapor Deposition) method. The membrane was analyzed by scanning electron microscope (SEM), CHN analyzer (Elemental Analyzer), and X-ray diffraction (XRD). As a result, the diameter and density of carbon whiskers were higher in case of polyvinyl di-chloride (PVdC): polyvinyl chloride (PVC) = 4.5: 55. It seems possible to control the diameter and density of the carbon whiskers according to the hydrogen content of the polymer latex.