• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.301-307
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• 2018

Membrane distillation (MD) is a thermally driven desalination process with a hydrophobic membrane. MD process has been known to have a lower fouling potential compared to other pressure-based membrane desalination process (NF, RO). However, membrane fouling also occurs in MD process. In this study, the membrane fouling was observed in MD process according to the pre-treatment processes. The filtration and precipitation processes were applied as the pre-treatment to prevent the membrane fouling. The pore sizes of roughing filters were 0.4, 5, 10, 30, and $60{\mu}m$. The concentration of the coagulant was 1.2 mg/L as $FeCl_3$. The membrane fouling on MD membrane was successfully removed with both pre-treatment processes.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.1 no.4
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• pp.283-296
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• 2010

During the disinfection of potable water, humic substances present in the solution react with chlorine to form potential carcinogenic compounds. This study evaluates the feasibility of using a submerged membrane photocatalysis reactor (SMPR) process for treatment of humic substances through the characterization of both organic removal efficiency and membrane hydraulic performance. A simple SMPR was operated and led to the removal of up to 83% of the polluting humic matters. Temporal rates of organic removal and membrane fouling were found to decrease with filtration time. Using tighter membrane in the hybrid process resulted in not only higher organic removal, but also more significant membrane fouling. Under the experimental conditions tested, optimum $TiO_2$ concentration for humic removal was found to be 0.6 g/L, and increasing initial pollutant concentration expectedly resulted in a more substantial membrane fouling. The importance of the influent nature and pollutant characteristics in this type of treatment was also assessed as various water sources were tested (model humic acid solution vs. local water containing natural organic matters). Results from this study revealed the promising nature of the SMPR process as an alternative technique for organic removal in the existing water treatment system.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.17 no.11
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• pp.1235-1241
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• 2008

Membrane separation is extensively used for water/wastewater treatment because of its efficiency separation processes. However, particles in the feed water can deposit and accumulate on the membrane surface to created cake layer. As a consequence, the selectivity of the membrane and flux through the membrane are decreased, which is called fouling/blocking phenomenon. In order to solve fouling problem, we developed a novel membrane named Carbon Whisker Membrane (CWM) which contains vapor-grown carbon fibers/whiskers on the surface of the membrane and a layer of carbon film coated on the ceramic substrate. We firstly employed polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) as a testing material to investigate the fouling mechanism. The results suggested that Carbon Whiskers on the surface of the membrane can prevent the directly contact between the membrane body and particles so that the fouling/blocking could not occurred easily compared to the membrane without carbon whiskers. We also researched the relationship with the diameter, density of carbon whisker on the membrane surface and total flux of solutions. Finally, we will be able to control the diameter and density of carbon whiskers on the membrane and existence of carbon whiskers on the membrane, it is important factor, might be prevent fouling/blocking in the water treatment.

• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
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• 1991.10a
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• pp.58-63
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• 1991

Membrane technology has been effectively used for many years in certain segments of industrial water treatment. Recent advances in combining sophisticated chemical pre-treatment technology with cross-flow membrane filtration technology have successfully demonstrated that highly efficient, low-cost methods for treating a large of industral streams are available.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.410-419
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• 2017

Since the beginning of the water shortage by disasters such as global warming, environmental pollution, and drought, development of original technology and studies have been undergone to increase availability of water resources. Among them the water treatment separation membrane technology is an environmentally friendly process that does not use chemicals and shows better water quality improvement effect than conventional physicochemical and biological processes. The water treatment membrane can be applied to various fields such as waste water treatment, water purification treatment, seawater desalination, ion exchange process, ultrapure water production, organic solvent separation and water treatment technology, and it tends to expand the range of application. In the core technology of water treatment membrane, researches are being actively carried out to develop a separation membrane of better performance by controlling the pore size to adjust the separation performance. In this review, we summarized the frequency of announcement by country and organization through the technological competitiveness evaluation of patents and papers of the water separation membrane. Also, we evaluated the results from membrane research for waste water treatment, water purification treatment, seawater desalination, ion exchange process and present the future direction of research.

• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
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• 1997.06a
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• pp.21-35
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• 1997

As environmental regulations become more stringent, water, used either as drinking water or as industrial process water, becomes increasingly better in its quality. As a result, an increasingly more advanced water treatment technology is required. It is believed that membrane technology will be able to satisfy such a requirement. The heart of the membrane technology is membrane. The advancement in water treatment technology using membranes, therefore, depends on the development of novel membranes which are superior in performance to the currently available membranes. In this paper, a brief review will be made how the recent progress in surface science, such as surface modification and surface characterization, has aided to improve the performance of the membranes used for water treatment. Some suggestions will also be made regarding the future direction of the research in this area.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.211-219
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• 2012

To enhance the efficiency of water treatment and reduce the extent of membrane fouling, the membrane separation process is frequently preceded by other physico-chemical processes. One of them might be ion exchange. The aim of this work was to compare the efficiency of natural organic matter removal achieved with various anion-exchange resins, and to verify their potential use in water treatment prior to the ultrafiltration process involving a ceramic membrane. The use of ion exchange prior to ceramic membrane ultrafiltration enhanced final water quality. The most effective was MIEX, which removed significant amounts of the VHA, SHA and CHA fractions. Separation of uncharged fractions was poor with all the resins examined. Water pretreatment involving an ion-exchange resin failed to reduce membrane fouling, which was higher than that observed in unpretreated water. This finding is to be attributed to the uncharged NOM fractions and small resin particles that persisted in the water.

• Korean Membrane Journal
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.21-28
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• 2009

We investigated the effect of organic materials on membrane fouling in advanced drinking water treatment by a hybrid module packed with granular activated carbon (GAC) outside multi-channel ceramic microfiltration membrane. Synthetic water was prepared with humic acid and kaolin to simulate natural water resouces consisting of natural organic matter and inorganic particles. Kaolin concentration was fixed at 30 mg/L and humic acid was changed as 2~10 mg/L to inspect the effect of organic matters. Periodic back-flushing using permeate water was performed for 10 sec per filtration of 10 min. As a result, both resistance of membrane fouling (Rf) and permeate flux (J) were influenced highly by concentration of humic acid. It proved that NOM like humic acid could be an important factor on membrane fouling in drinking water treatment. Turbidity and UV254 absorbance were removed up to above 97.4% and 59.2% respectively.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.191-199
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• 2022

In industrial production, the development of traditional polyamide nanofiltration (NF) membrane was limited due to its poor oxidation resistance, complex preparation process and high cost. In this study, a composite NF membrane with high flux, high separation performance, high oxidation resistance and simple process preparation was prepared by the method of dilute solution dip coating. And the sulfonated polysulfone was used for dip coating. The results indicated that the concentration of glycerin, the pore size of the based membrane, the composition of the coating solution, and the post-treatment process had important effects on the structure and performance of the composite NF membrane. The composite NF membrane prepared without glycerol protecting based membrane had a low flux, when the concentration of glycerin increased from 5% to 15%, the pure water flux of the composite NF membrane increased from 46.4 LMH to 108.2 LMH, and the salt rejection rate did not change much. By optimizing the coating system, the rejection rate of Na₂SO₄ and PEG1000 was higher than 90%, the pure water flux was higher than 40 LMH (60psi), and it can withstand 20,000 ppm.h NaClO solution cleaning. When the post treatment processes was adjusted, the salt rejection rate of NaCl solution (250 ppm) reached 45.5%, and the flux reached 62.2 LMH.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.373-383
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• 2018

Fouling by solids and microorganisms is the major obstacle limiting the efficient use of membrane wastewater treatment. In our previous study, two stages microalgae/membrane filtration system was proposed to treat anaerobic digested palm oil mill effluent (AnPOME). This two stages microalgae/membrane filtration system had showed great potential for the treatment of AnPOME with high removal of COD, $NH_3-N$, $PO_4{^{3-}}$, TSS, turbidity, and colour. However, fouling behavior of the membrane in this two stages microalgae/membrane filtration system was still unknown. In this study, empirical models that describe permeate flux decline for dead-end filtration (pore blocking - complete, intermediate, and standard; and cake layer formation) presented by Hermia were used to fit the experimental results in identifying the fouling mechanism under different experimental conditions. Both centrifuged and non-centrifuged samples were taken from the medium with 3 days RT intervals, from day 0 to day 12 to study their influence on fouling mechanisms described by Hermia for ultrafiltration (UF), nanofiltration (NF), and reverse osmosis (RO) filtration mode. Besides, a more detailed study on the use of resistance-in-series model for deadend filtration was done to investigate the fouling mechanisms involved in membrane filtration of AnPOME collected after microalgae treatment. The results showed that fouling of UF and NF membrane was mainly caused by cake layer formation and it was also supported by the analysis for resistance-in-series model. Whereas, fouling of RO membrane was dominated by concentration polarization.