• Membrane Journal
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.154-161
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• 2003

We measured the permeation characteristics of water with the hydrophobic PTFE membranes dependent on water temperature to confirm the separation of oxygen isotopes using Air Gap Membrane Distillation (AGMD) and Vacuum Enhanced Membrane Distillation (VEMD). Isotopic concentrations of $H_2^{16}O$ and $H_2^{18}O$ of the permeated water vapor were measured by Diode Laser Absorption Spectroscopy. Concentrations of the heavy oxygen isotopes in the permeated water vapor were decreased. Isotope separation coefficients for the hydrophobic PTFE membranes were 1.004∼1.01 depending on the experimental conditions. We observed the effects of air in membrane pores on the oxygen isotope separation. Isotope separation coefficients for the hydrophobic PTFE membranes without air in pores are higher than those for the membrane with air in pores.

• Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering
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• v.35 no.11
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• pp.2256-2268
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• 2018

Hydrophilic and hydrophobic polyethersulfone (PES)-zinc oxide (ZnO) sublayers were prepared by loading of ZnO nanoparticles into PES matrix. Both porosity and hydrophilicity of the hydrophilic sublayer were increased upon addition of hydrophilic ZnO, while these were decreased for the hydrophobic sublayer. In addition, the results demonstrated that the hydrophilic membrane exhibited smaller structural parameter (S value or S parameter or S), which is beneficial for improving pure water permeability and decreasing mass transfer resistance. In contrast, a higher S parameter was obtained for the hydrophobic membrane. With a 2 M NaCl as DS and DI water as FS, the pure water flux of hydrophilic TFN0.5 membrane was increased from $21.02L/m^2h$ to $30.06L/m^2h$ and decreased for hydrophobic TFN0.5 membrane to $14.98L/m^2h$, while the salt flux of hydrophilic membrane increased from $10.12g/m^2h$ to $17.31g/m^2h$ and decreased for hydrophobic TFN0.5 membrane to $3.12g/m^2h$. The increment in pure water permeability can be ascribed to reduction in S parameter, which resulted in reduced internal concentration polarization (ICP). The current study provides a feasible and low cost procedure to decrease the ICP in FO processes.

• 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.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.45 no.5
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• pp.500-505
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• 2007

The objectives of this research were to (1) identify the membrane fouling potential due to different fractions of NOM (2) correlate the physicochemical properties of NOM and membranes with the adsorption of humic substances on membrane (4) find out the effect of membrane physical and chemical washing according to membrane material. The static adsorption test and adsorption test showed that hydrophobic organics adsorbed much more quickly than hydrophilic organics. In case of the effect of membrane properties on the adsorption of organic fractions, the adsorption rate ratio(a) of hydrophobic membrane (0.016, 0.077) was greater than that of hydrophilic membrane (0.010, 0.033) regardless of the kind of organic fractions. This suggests that the UF membrane fouling were occurred mainly by internal pore size decreasing due to adsorption of organic into pore surface for hydrophobic membrane, and by sieving of organics and forming a gel layer on the membrane surface for hydrophilic membrane. In conclusion, the decrease in the pore volume, which was caused by the organic adsorption into the internal pore, was greater with the hydrophobic membrane than with the hydrophilic membrane. In case of the effect of membrane properties on permeate flux, the rate of flux decline for the hydrophobic membrane was significantly greater than that for the hydrophilic membrane.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.103-120
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• 2010

Surface modification of microfiltration and ultrafiltration membranes has been widely used to improve the protein adsorption resistance and permeation properties of hydrophobic membranes. Several surface modification methods for converting conventional membranes into low-protein-binding membranes are reviewed. They are categorized as either physical modification or chemical modification of the membrane surface. Physical modification of the membrane surface can be achieved by coating it with hydrophilic polymers, hydrophilic-hydrophobic copolymers, surfactants or proteins. Another method of physical modification is plasma treatment with gases. A hydrophilic membrane surface can be also generated during phase-inverted micro-separation during membrane formation, by blending hydrophilic or hydrophilic-hydrophobic polymers with a hydrophobic base membrane polymer. The most widely used method of chemical modification is surface grafting of a hydrophilic polymer by UV polymerization because it is the easiest method; the membranes are dipped into monomers with and without photo-initiators, then irradiated with UV. Plasma-induced polymerization of hydrophilic monomers on the surface is another popular method, and surface chemical reactions have also been developed by several researchers. Several important examples of physical and chemical modifications of membrane surfaces for low-protein-binding are summarized in this article.

• Korean Membrane Journal
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.43-49
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• 1999

Separation of soluble oil was investigated during filtration of cutting oil emulsion using various commercial ultrafiltration membranes. The surface properties of membranes used were hydrophilic hydrophobic and modified surfaces by various surfactant pretreatments. Conditions varied include stirring speed transmeembrane pressure membrane type and surfactant type for pretreatment. The results give some indication of mechanisms occurring at the membrane surface. Surfactant pretreatments significantly improved water flux and UF flux of hydrophilic regenerated cellulose(up to 2.4x for YM100) and hydrophobic polysulfone (up to 2.2x for PTHK) membranes depending on surfactant type and operating conditions. The UF flux enhancement was attributed to membrane swelling and reduction of interfacial surface tension between oil droplets and membrane surface. unexpectedly the hydrophilic membranes revealed greater flux enhancement than the hydrophobic membranes. The results also showed a greater improvement in UF flux at lower operating pressure.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.251-257
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• 2019

Fabricating hydrophobic porous membrane is important for exploring the applications of membrane distillation (MD). In the present paper, poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) hollow fiber membrane was modified by coating polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) on its surface. The effects of PDMS concentration, cross-linking temperature and cross-linking time on the performance of the composite membranes in a vacuum membrane distillation (VMD) process were investigated. It was found that the hydrophobicity and the VMD performance of the PVDF hollow fiber membrane were obviously improved by coating PDMS. The optimal PDMS concentration, cross-linking temperature and cross-linking time were 0.5 wt%, $80^{\circ}C$, and 9 hr, respectively.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.326-331
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• 2012

In this study, rejection behavior of 2-MIB (methylisoborneal) and geosmin which are known as taste-and-odor (T & O) causing micropollutants in drinking water source was investigated using hydrophobic polyethersulfone (PES) nanofiltration "loose" membrane (MWCO : 400 Da). It was found that the rejection of the geosmin was higher than that of the 2-MIB in all experimental conditions tested. This study also showed that the rejections of 2-MIB and geosmin were increased by increasing solution pH due to enhancing electrostatic repulsions between micropollutants and membrane surface. The presence of natural organic matter led to increase the rejection of the hydrophobic 2-MIB and geosmin and the effectiveness was more pronounced at higher solution pH. Increasing hydrophilicity of the hydrophobic membrane surface by coating with $TiO_2$ particles resulted in the significant increase in the rejection of 2-MIB and geosmin. In addition to the charge repulsion, this result suggests that hydrophobic-hydrophobic interaction should be one of main rejection mechanisms of T & O compounds by NF membrane.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.9 no.7
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• pp.1036-1042
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• 1998

It was investigated that the extraction of Cr(VI) from aqueous solution into the organic TDA and the stripping(back extraction) of Cr(VI) from the Cr(VI)-TDA complex into NaOH aqueous solution by hydrophobic hollow fiber membrane. It was found that the mass transfer rates of stripping process were smaller than those of the extraction process. This result was expected that membrane resistance, neglected in the extraction process, acts on the stripping process when organic phase flow in the tube side of the hydrophobic membrane. Hollow fiber modules were made by potting the desired number(60, 100, 150, 300fibers). We also examined the effect of flow rates of aqueous and organic phase on the mass transfer rate in the membrane modules. From these experiments, we identified for the extraction process by using hydrophobic membrane, the effect of flow rate of aqueous phase on the mass transfer rate was significant, but that of organic phase was negligible one. In the stripping process, however, mass transfer rate depend neither flow rate of aqueous(stripping solution) phase nor that of organic(Cr-TDA complex) phase.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.21-29
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• 2024

1H,1H,2H,2H-perfluorodecytriethoxysilane (C₁₆H₁₉F₁₇O₃Si) be successfully applied to the hydrophobic modification of Al₂O₃ tubular ceramic membrane. Taking the concentration of modification solution, modification time, and modification temperature as factors, orthogonal experiments were designed to study the hydrophobicity of the composite membranes. The experiments showed that the modification time had the greatest impact on the experimental results, followed by the modification temperature, and the modification solution concentration had the smallest impact. Concentration of the modified solution 0.012 mol·L^-1, modification temperature 30 ℃ and modification time 24 h were considered optimal hydrophobic modification conditions. And the pure water flux reached 274.80 kg·m^-2·h^-1 at 0.1MPa before hydrophobic modification, whereas the modified membrane completely blocked liquid water permeation at pressures less than 0.1MPa. Air gap membrane distillation experiments were conducted for NaCl (2wt%) solution, and the maximum flux reached 4.20 kg·m^-2·h^-1, while the retention rate remained above 99.8%. Given the scarcity of freshwater resources in coastal areas, the article proposed a system for seawater desalination using air conditioning waste heat, and conducted preliminary research on its freshwater production performance using Aspen Plus. Finally, the proposed system achieved a freshwater production capacity of 0.61 kg·m^-2·h^-1.