• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.140-144
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• 2006

This study was performed to investigate the effect of organic characteristics and feed water solution chemistry on membrane fouling index such as Silt Density Index (SDI) and Modified Fouling Index (MFI). Specifically, Aldrich humic acids (AHA) and Suwannee river humic acids (SHA) were used in SDI/MFI experiments. Higher SDI values were observed with increasing organic concentration. AHA with larger molecular weight (MW) and SUVA (${\approx}UV_{254}/TOC$) resulted in higher SDI values, compared to SHA. The feed solution chemistry (i.e, pH, ionic strength, and hardness) also affects SDI values to some degree. In particular, SDI increased with increasing hardness ($Ca^{2+}$) concentration for AHA. Unlike SDI, the MFI developed on the basis of particle cake filtration theory, was not accurately assessed due to internal fouling by organics such as pore adsorption and subsequent pore blocking.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2016

Temperature correction trans-membrane pressure (TC-TMP) is frequently used as a fouling index in membrane water treatment plants. TC-TMP equation is derived based on an assumption that the total membrane resistance (i.e. the sum of the intrinsic membrane resistance and fouling resistance) is not affected by temperature. This work verified the validity of this assumption using microfiltration (MF) and ultrafiltration (UF) membranes with and without fouling. The foulants used in the work were kaolin (inorganic) and humic acid (organic). The intrinsic resistances of MF and UF membranes remains at constant values regardless of temperature change. When the same amount of foulants were accumulated on the membrane, inorganic fouling resistance with kaolin was constant regardless of temperature change while organic fouling resistance with humic acid decreased at higher temperatures, which means that TC-TMP cannot be used as a fouling index when organic fouling occurs in a real field application. Since TC-TMP underestimates the amount of fouling at higher temperatures, more attention should be necessary in the operation of membrane water treatment plant in a hotter season like summer.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.489-495
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• 2011

Silt Density Index (SDI) has been used as a fouling index for reverse osmosis (RO) processes for decades. In order to decrease RO fouling, feed water should meet SDI standard, which was used to select a proper pretreatment system for RO processes. However, SDI is supposed to be sensitive only to particles larger than 0.45 ${\mu}m$ in terms of diameters while nanoparticles and dissolved organic matter can be potent foulants for RO processes. Our study started from the suspected performance of SDI as a RO fouling index. SDI data from pilot plants located world wide including South Korea were collected and analyzed. Suspended partcle concentration (i.e., turbidity and particle counts), and dissolved organic matter concentration (i.e., dissolved orgnaic carbon (DOC) concentration) data were also collected and compared to SDI values of same water samples. We found that SDI values were not only affected by suspended particle concentration but also by dissolved organic matter concentration. Therefore SDI can be used as a reasonable fouling index for RO feed water because the main foulants for RO processes are suspended particle and dissolved organic matter.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.22 no.7
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• pp.1183-1191
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• 2000

Operating conditions for reduction of membrane fouling in treatment of dissolved organic matter by UF membrane process were investigated by pilot-scale plant using various operating conditions. As inlet pressure increased, increament of transmembrane pressure and flux decline were faster. The reason was due to the increase in adsorption of dissolved organic matter and the development of cake layer compression on the membrane surface. When efficient pressure (the difference of pressure between backwash and transmembrane pressures) was high, small amount of pollutant was retained on the membrane surface. When backwash was frequently conducted, low concentration of pollutant was maintained in recycling water. Therefore, backwash could be efficiently conducted with high efficient pressure and high frequency. Fouling rate was correlated with backwash and inlet pressures, recovery rate and cumulative permeated volume. Among the operating parameters backwash pressure was most closely related to fouling rate and inlet pressure was next to backwash pressure. It seems that the fouling was strongly related to pressure which leads to the cake layer compression and adsorption of dissolved organic matter.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.325-334
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• 2023

Membrane bioreactor (MBR) provides the benefits on high effluent quality and construction cost without the secondary clarification. Despite of these advantages, fouling, which clogs the pore in membrane modules, affects the membrane life span and effluent quality. Studies on the laboratory scale MBR were focused on the control of particulate fouling, organic fouling and inorganic fouling. However, less studies were focused on the control of biofouling and microbial aspect of membrane. In the full scale operation, most MBR produces high effluent quality to meet the national permit of discharge regulation. In this study, the performance and microbial community analysis were investigated in two MBRs. As the results, the performance of organic removal, nitrogen removal, and phosphorus removal was similar both MBRs. Microbial community analysis, however, showed that Azonexus sp. and Propionivibrio sp. contributed to indirect fouling to cause the chemical cleaning in the DX MBR.

• 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.

• 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.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2003.04a
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• pp.1467-1472
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• 2003

Fouling of heat exchangers is generated by water-borne deposits, commonly known as foulants including particulate matter from the air, migrated corrosion produces; silt, clays, and sand suspended in water; organic contaminants; and boron based deposits in plants. This fouling is known to interfere with normal flow characteristics and reduce thermal efficiencies of heat exchangers. This paper focuses on fouling analyses for six heat exchangers of two primary systems in two nuclear power plants; the regenerative heat exchangers of the chemical and volume control system and the component cooling water heat exchangers of the component cooling water system. To analyze the fouling for heat exchangers, fouling factor was introduced based on the ASME O&M codes and TEMA standards. Based on the results of the fouling analyses, the present thermal performances and fouling levels for the six heat exchangers were predicted.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.545-551
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• 2016

This study compares characteristic of membrane fouling in MBR-RO systems. In lab. scale MBRs test, MBRs were operated at different Flux(10, 20, 30 & 40 LMH) and temperature(10, 15, 20, 25 & $30^{\circ}C$). The results show that MBR permeate was measured lower amounts of organic substances in Higher flux and lower temperature and led to lower RO fouling rates. The main cause was that due to cake fouling formed on membrane surfaces in MBRs. Under both cases, Cake layer of membrane surfaces formed in MBRs removed RO fouling factors, polysaccharide and protein, because of cake layer attached on membrane surfaces greater amounts of organic substances. This study implies that optimization of MBR with operating conditions is a crucial strategy to RO membrane fouling control.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2016

Ultrafiltration is known to be one of the most commonly applied techniques in water treatment. Membrane fouling is the main limiting factor in terms of process efficiency and restricting it to the manageable degree is crucial. Natural organic matter is often found to be a major foulant in surface waters. Among many known fouling prevention techniques, the membrane chemical cleaning is widely employed. This study focuses on evaluating the cleaning efficiency of polymeric and ceramic membranes with the use of various chemicals. The influence of cleaning agent type and its concentration, membrane material and its MWCO, and cleaning process duration on the recovery of membrane flux was analyzed. Results have shown that, regardless of membrane type and MWCO, the most effective cleaning agent was NaOH.