• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.155-181
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• 2024

In recent years, significant research has been conducted to enhance the performance of existing membranes for efficient CO₂ capture, aiming to expand their application in carbon capture processes. Membrane technology has emerged as a promising carbon capture approach to addressing the net-zero challenge due to its cost and energy efficiency, continuous operation, and compact process size. Among the various types of membranes studied, mixed-matrix membranes (MMMs) have been proposed as an alternative to conventional membranes to enhance the efficiency of gas separation processes. Various common 2D nanomaterials, characterized by their ease of modification, functionalization, and compatibility with other materials, have been used to create efficient MMMs for gas separation. This article comprehensively reviews the recent developments in MMMs using 2D nanomaterials. It also discusses the current challenges and prospects of 2D nanomaterial-based membranes for CO₂ separation and capture.

• Applied Microscopy
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.1-14
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• 1992

Parenchyma of the cat pineal body consisted of pinealocytes and glial cells. The pinealocyte, predominant cell type, was characterized by having large mitochondria with pale matrix, abundant polyribosomes, moderately-developed Golgi apparatus, centrioles and occasional cilia. The pinealocyte had one thick and long cytoplasmic process at the one pole of the cell, and slender and shorter processes at the other pole, and in addition occasional short processes from the cell body. These processes contained longitudinally arranged microtubules, and a few mitochondria. Thick processes teminated as bulgings either in the intercellular process-rich area, or in the perivascular border which was formed by glial cell processes. These endings of pinealocyte processes had many small vesicles, mitochondria, and occasional dense bodies. Glial cells with abundant filaments of intermediate type and clear cytoplasmic matrix were fibrous astrocyte. Perikarya of the astrocytes had small and dense mitochondria, moderately developed Golgi apparatus, dense bodies and variable amount of intermediate filaments. Glial cell processes run through the intercellular spaces among the pinealocyte processes. Glial cell of protoplasmic type had no or a few filaments, but it had well-organized rough endoplasmic reticulum, dense mitochondria, well developed Golgi apparatus and many dense granules. Intercellular canaliculi formed by adjacent pinealocytes and glial cell processes were often noted. Within the parenchyma, sympathetic and parasympathetic axons and their endings were noted. These endings were present mostly in the intercellular spaces without having membrane specialization, however, in rare instances, ending with small clear and dense cored vesicles, and large dense cored vesicles formed specialized synapse with a pinealocyte process. Within the perivascular spaces nerve fibers and endings, Schwann cells and pericyte were noted. In rare case pinealocyte process penetrated into the perivascular space through the interuptions of glial border. These results suggest that pinealocyte of the cat has less significance in secretory function and is rather neural type of cell.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.522-528
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• 2011

Artificial basilar membranes made of PVDF(polyvinylidene fluoride) are manufactured using microfabrication processes. The mechanical behavior of PVDF artificial basilar membrane was measured to evaluate its performance as a mechanical frequency analyzer using scanning LDV(laser Doppler vibrometer). The experimental setup consists of the microfabricated artificial basilar membrane, a loud speaker connected to an amplifier for generating acoustic pressure of specific spectral pattern, and a scanning LDV with controlling unit for measuring the displacement of the membrane on the incoming acoustic stimulation. The microfabricated artificial basilar membrane was attached tightly upon a package containing a chamber which can be filled with silicone oil before placed on the experimental setup stage. The experiment results showed that the microfabricated artificial basilar membrane has a property as a mechanical frequency analyzer.

• Plant Journal
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.24-30
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• 2016

The membrane separation processes have received attention due to advantages such as compactness, modularity, ease of installation, flexibility of operation, lower capital cost and lower energy consumption. In this study, we evaluated accuracy of cross-flow, co-current and counter-current models. With the most accurate model, we identified the operating conditions of the two-stage membrane separation and examined the effects of permeance and selectivity of the membrane by simulation. Futhermore, power requirements and operating cost savings due to the introduction of the heat exchanger were investigated by applying heat exchanger network synthesis technique in the two-stage membrane separation using vapor sweep.

• Korean Membrane Journal
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.36-47
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• 2000

This paper deals with the separation of MTBE-methanol mixtures using crosslinked Poly(vinyl alcohol)(PVA) membranes with sulfur-succinic acid(SSA) as a crosslinking agent by pervaporation and vapor permeation technique. The operating temperatures, methanol concentration in feed mixtures, and SSA concentrations in PVA membranes were varied to investigate the separation performance of PVA/SSA membranes and the optimum separation characteristics by pervaporation and vapor permeation. And also, for PVA/SSA membranes, the swelling measurements were carried out to study the transport phenomena. The swelling measurements were carried out for pure MTBE and methanol, and MTBE/methanol=90/10, 80/20 mixtures using PVA/SSA membranes with varying SSA compositions. There are two factors of the membrane network and the hydrogen bonding. In pervaporation separation was also carried out for MTBE/methanol=90/10, 80/20 mixtures at various temperatures. The sulfuric acid group in SSA took an important role in the membrane performance. The crosslinking effect might be over the hydrogen bonding effect due to the sulfuric acid group at 3 and 5% SSA membranes, and this two factors act vice versa on 7% SSA membrane. In this case, the 5% SSA membrane shows the highest separation factor of 2,095 with the flux of 12.79g/㎡$.$hr for MTBE/methanol=80/20 mixtures at 30$^{\circ}C$ which this mixtures show near the azeotopic composition. Compared to pervaporation, vapor permeation showed less flux and similar separation factor. In this case, the flux decreased significantly because of compact structure and the effect of hydrogen bonding. In vapor permeation, density or concentration of methanol in vaporous feed is lower than that of methanol in liquid feed, as a result, the hydrogen bonding portion between the solvent and the hydroxyl group in PVA is reduced in vapor permeation. In this case, the 7% SSA membranes shows the highest separation factor of 2,187 with the flux of 4.84g/㎡$.$hr for MTBE/methanol=80/20 mixtures at 30$^{\circ}C$.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.310-316
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• 2006

In this study, activated carbon in a powder form was used to remove dissolved ammonia which causes a fouling smell in water. Since the adsorption capacity of common powder activated carbon is not high enough, we prepared powder activated carbon deposited on an acid solution to enhance the adsorption capacity. The acid-impregnated activated carbon was applied on the surface of porous fibril support ($10{\sim}50{\mu}m$) by which adsorption and separation processes take place simultaneously by varying effective pressure. As the result, the ammonia removal efficiency is above 60% in the mixing process which is 10~15% higher than general powder activated carbon. From the result of an experiment on the pure permeable test of a dynamic membrane, its transmittance is 400~700 LMH (liter per hour), indicating that the prepared membrane works as a microfiltration membrane. Therefore, it is expected that the membrane prepared in this way would improve the efficiency of water treatment than conventional membranes.

• Macromolecular Research
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• v.17 no.7
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• pp.528-532
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• 2009

The size and shape of free volume (FV) holes available in membrane materials control the rate of gas diffusion and its permeability. Based on this principle, a segmented, thermo-sensitive polyurethane (TSPU) membrane with functional gate, i.e., the ability to sense and respond to external thermo-stimuli, was synthesized. This smart membrane exhibited close-open characteristics to the size of the FV hole and water vapor permeation and thus can be used as smart food packaging materials. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA), positron annihilation lifetimes (PAL) and water vapor permeability (WVP) were used to evaluate how the morphological structure of TSPU and the temperature influence the FV holes size. In DSC and DMA studies, TSPU with a crystalline transition reversible phase showed an obvious phase-separated structure and a phase transition temperature at $53^{\circ}C$ (defined as the switch temperature and used as a functional gate). Moreover, the switch temperature ($T_s$) and the thermal-sensitivity of TSPU remained available after two or three thermal cyclic processes. The PAL study indicated that the FV hole size of TSPU is closely related to the $T_s$. When the temperature varied cyclically from $T_s-10{\circ}C$ to $T_s+10^{\circ}C$, the average radius (R) of the FV holes of the TSPU membrane also shifted cyclically from 0.23 to 0.467 nm, exhibiting an "open-close" feature. As a result, the WVP of the TSPU membrane also shifted cyclically from 4.30 to $8.58\;kg/m^2{\cdot}d$, which produced an "increase-decrease" response to the thermo-stimuli. This phase transition accompanying significant changes in the FV hole size and WVP can be used to develop "smart materials" with functional gates and controllable water vapor permeation, which support the possible applications of TSPU for food packaging.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.243-248
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• 2005

Membrane pervaporation processes could have advantages over distillation for separation of water/organics mixtures: a low energy demand and the ability to separate azeotropic mixtures or isomers. Zeolite membranes might show better thermal, mechanical and chemical stabilities than polymer membranes. Water could be effectively separated from water/organic mixtures using the NaA zeolite membrane because of its high hydrophilicity. In this study, water was separated by pervaporation using the NaA zeolite membrane from water/ethanol mixtures. As a mole fraction of ethanol increased, the total permeation flux and the water flux decreased while the separation factor increased, reached a maximum point, and decreased. As an experimental temperature increased, the total permeation flux increased while the separation factor increased at the lower mole fraction of ethanol than 0.8 and it decreased at the higher mole fraction of ethanol than 0.8. The total permeation flux and the separation factor could be maintained constant during the long term experiment longer than 160 hours. It was found that the NaA zeolite membrane synthesized in our study showed better performance on water/ethanol separation than that of a distillation process or PVA polymeric pervaporation membranes.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.225-235
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• 2015

During low-pressure membrane treatments of cyanobacterial cells, including microfiltration (MF) and ultrafiltration (UF), there have reportedly been releases of intracellular compounds including cyanotoxins and compounds with an earthy-musty odor into the water, probably owing to cyanobacterial cell breakage retained on the membrane. However, to our knowledge, no information was reported regarding the effect of growth phase of cyanobacterial cells on the release of the intracellular compounds. In the present study, we used a geosmin-producing cyanobacterium, Anabaena smithii, to investigate the effect of the growth phase of the cyanobacterium on the release of intracellular geosmin during laboratory-scale MF experiments with the cells in either the logarithmic growth or stationary phase. Separate detection of damaged and intact cells revealed that the extent of cell breakage on the MF membrane was almost the same for logarithmic growth and stationary phase cells. However, whereas the geosmin concentration in the MF permeate increased after 3 h of filtration with cells in the logarithmic growth phase, it did not increase during filtration with cells in the stationary phase: the trend in the geosmin concentration in the MF permeate with time was much different between the logarithmic growth and stationary phases. Adsorption of geosmin to algogenic organic matter (AOM) retained on the MF membrane and/or pore blocking with the AOM were greater when the cells were in the stationary phase versus the logarithmic growth phase, the result being a decrease in the apparent release of intracellular geosmin from the stationary phase cells. In actual drinking water treatment plants employing membrane processes, more attention should be paid to the cyanobacterial cells in logarithmic growth phase than in stationary phase from a viewpoint of preventing the leakage of intracellular earthy-musty odor compounds to finished water.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.36-36
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• 1992

This paper deals with the separation of MTBE-methanol mixtures using crosslinked Poly(vinyl alcohol)(PVA) membranes with sulfur-succinic acid(SSA) as a crosslinking agent by pervaporation and vapor permeation technique. The operating temperatures, methanol concentration in feed mixtures, and SSA concentrations in PVA membranes were varied to investigate the separation performance of PVA/SSA membranes and the optimum separation characteristics by pervaporation and vapor permeation. And also, for PVA/SSA membranes, the swelling measurements were carried out to study the transport phenomena. The swelling measurements were carried out for pure MTBE and methanol, and MTBE/methanol=90/10, 80/20 mixtures using PVA/SSA membranes with varying SSA compositions. There are two factors of the membrane network and the hydrogen bonding. In pervaporation separation was also carried out for MTBE/methanol=90/10, 80/20 mixtures at various temperatures. The sulfuric acid group in SSA took an important role in the membrane performance. The crosslinking effect might be over the hydrogen bonding effect due to the sulfuric acid group at 3 and 5% SSA membranes, and this two factors act vice versa on 7% SSA membrane. In this case, the 5% SSA membrane shows the highest separation factor of 2,095 with the flux of 12.79g/㎡·hr for MTBE/methanol=80/20 mixtures at 30℃ which this mixtures show near the azeotopic composition. Compared to pervaporation, vapor permeation showed less flux and similar separation factor. In this case, the flux decreased significantly because of compact structure and the effect of hydrogen bonding. In vapor permeation, density or concentration of methanol in vaporous feed is lower than that of methanol in liquid feed, as a result, the hydrogen bonding portion between the solvent and the hydroxyl group in PVA is reduced in vapor permeation. In this case, the 7% SSA membranes shows the highest separation factor of 2,187 with the flux of 4.84g/㎡·hr for MTBE/methanol=80/20 mixtures at 30℃.