• Textile Coloration and Finishing
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.68-75
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• 2003

In this work, ultrafiltration(UF) membranes were prepared using polyethersulfone(PES). The polymer was dissolved in various solvent, such as N, N-dimethyl formamide(DMF), N,-dimethyl acetamide (DMAc), N,N-dimethyl sulfoxide(DMSO) and N-methyl-2- pynolidone(NMP). Each polymer solution was casted on the glass plate, and immersed into non-solvent bath. In this way finely porous UF membranes were prepared by phase inversion method. The cross sectional structure of PES membrane was asymmetric which was consist of sponge-like sublayer, finger-like toplayer, and active skin layer. From the solute rejection experiments, the molecular weight cut off of the prepared membrane in various solvent was evaluated 10,000 for DMF, 30,000 for DMAc, 50,000 for DMSO, and 10,000 for NMP respectively.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.29-36
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• 2003

A characterization of the permeation and separation using single salt solution was carried out with charged composite membranes. Various charged composite membranes were fabricated by blending an ionic polymer with a nonionic polymer in different ratios. In this study, sodium alginate, chitosan and poly(vinyl alcohol) were employed as anionic, cationic and nonionic polymers, respectively. The permeation and separation behaviors of the aqueous salt solutions have been investigated through the charged composite membranes with various charge densities. As the content of the ionic polymer increased in the membrane, the hydrophilicity of the membrane increased, and pure water flux and the solution flux increased correspondingly, indicating that the permeation performance through the membrane is determined mainly by its hydrophilicity. Electrostatic interaction between the charged membrane and ionic solute molecules, that is, Donnan exclusion, was observed to be attributed to salt rejection to a greater extent, and molecular sieve mechanism was effective for the separation of salts under a similar electrostatic circumstance of solutes.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.225-244
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• 2017

A novel thin-film nanocomposite (TFN) reverse osmosis (RO)/non-woven fabric (NWF) membrane was prepared by adding zinc oxide (ZnO) nanospheres ($30{\pm}10nm$) during the interfacial polymerization process of m-phenylenediamine (MPD) and trimesoyl chloride (TMC) on self-made polysulfone (PSF) membrane/polyester (PET) non-woven fabric support. The improved performance of TFN RO membrane was verified in terms of water contact angle (WCA), water flux, salt rejection, antifouling properties and chlorine resistance. The results showed that the WCA value of TFN RO surface had a continuous decrease with the increasing of ZnO content in MPD aqueous solution. The water flux of composite TFN RO membranes acquired a remarkable increase with a stable high solute rejection (94.5 %) in $1g{\cdot}L^{-1}$ NaCl aqueous solution under the optimized addition amount of ZnO (1 wt%). The continuous testing of membrane separation performance after the immersion in sodium hypochlorite solution indicated that the introduction of ZnO nanospheres also dramatically enhanced the antifouling properties and the chlorine resistance of composite RO membranes.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.349-357
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• 2007

Reports of endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs), pharmaceutically active compounds (PhACs), and personal care products (PCPs) have raised substantial concern in important potable drinking water quality issues. Our study investigates the removal of EDCs, PhACs, and PCPs of 10 compounds having different physico-chemical properties (e.g., molecular weight, and octanol-water partition coefficient ($K_{OW}$)) by nanofiltration (NF) membranes. The rejection of micropollutants by NF membranes ranged from 93.9% to 99.9% depending on solute characteristics. A batch adsorption experiments indicated that adsorption is an important mechanism for transport/removal of relatively hydrophobic compounds, and is related to the octanol-water partition coefficient values. The transport phenomenon associated with adsorption may also depend on solution water chemistry such as pH and ionic strength influencing the pKa value of compounds. In addition, it was visually seen that the retention was somewhat higher for the larger compounds based on their molecular weight. These results suggest that the NF membrane retains many organic compounds due to both hydrophobic adsorption and size exclusion mechanisms.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.355-365
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• 2016

The improvement of fouling resistance of porous polymeric membrane is one of the most important targets in membrane preparation for water purification in many process like wastewater treatment. Membranes can be modified by various techniques, including the treatment of polymer material, blending of hydrophilic polymer into polymer solution, and post treatment of fabricated membrane. This research proposed the modifications of morphology and surface property of hydrophobic membrane by blending polyethersulfone (PES) with three polymeric additives, polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), Pluronic F127 (Plu), and Tetronic 1307 (Tet). PES hollow fiber membranes were fabricated via dry-wet spinning process by using a spinneret with inner and outer diameter of 0.7 and 1.0 mm, respectively. The morphology changes of PES blend membrane by those additives, as well as the change of performance in ultrafiltration module were comparatively observed. The surface structure of membranes was characterized by atomic force microscopy and Fourier transform infra red spectroscopy. The cross section morphology of PES blend hollow fiber membranes was investigated by scanning electron microscopy. The results showed that all polymeric additives blended in this system affected to improve the performances of PES membrane. The ultra-filtration experiment confirmed that PES-PVP membrane showed the best performance among the three membranes on the basis of filtration stability.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.22-28
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• 2001

Various charged homogeneous membranes were fabricated by blending of ionic polymer with a non-ionic polymer with different ratios. In this study. sodium alginate, chitosan and poly(vinyl alcohol) were employed as anionic. cationic and non-ionic polymers, respectively. The permcation and separation behaviors of aquCOll::; salt solutions have been investigated through the charged membranes. As the content of ionic polymer increases in the membrane, the hydrophilicity of the membrane increases and pure water flux as well as solution flux increases correspondingly, indicating that the permeation performance through the membrane is cletemunecl mainly by its hydrophilicity-, Electrostatic interaction between the charged membrane and ionic solute molecules, that is. Donnan exclusion was observed to be attributed to salt rejection to a great deal of extent, and molecular sieve mechanism was effective [or the separation of the salt solution under a similar electrostatic circumstance of solutes.

• Proceedings of the Korea Committee for Ocean Resources and Engineering Conference
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• 2004.11a
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• pp.7-12
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• 2004

Desalination system of revers osmosis(RO) membrane has been proven to be the most economical not only for the desalination of water containing salts, but also for the concentration of solute. RO membranes were traditionally made of inorganic polymers such. as cellulose acetate(CA), Polyamide(PA). To retain more minerals in deep ocean water, a new hybrid membrane composed of tourmaline film as organic material onto inorganic layer of CA polymer in asymmetric structure was developed for RO membrane process. The performance tests were carried out in the permeability of pure water and the rejection of NaCl solution to evaluate the adaptability for DOW desalination. The results of these basic tests show possibility to apply the new hybrid RO membrane for the desalination with function control.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.81-88
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• 1995

Separation performance was measured for the disc plate and frame type reverse osmosis module using NaCl and sucrose solutions. An analysis of membrane performance was done following the equations proposed by Kimura-Sourirajan[8]. The membrane permeability was $2.17 \times 10^{-6}$(gmol/$cm^2$-sec-bar) and independent of operating pressure. The effect of concentration polarization for sucrose solution was higher than that of NaCl. Permeation flux for sucrose solution above 40 bar was decreased as operating pressure was increased. Solute rejection for NaCl solution was decreased, but that of sucrose was increased as operating pressure was increased.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.75-82
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• 2018

Forward osmosis (FO) desalination system has been highlighted to improve the energy efficiency and drive down the carbon footprint of current reverse osmosis (RO) desalination technology. To improve the trade-off between water flux and salt rejection of thin film composite (TFC) desalination membrane, thin film nanocomposite membranes (TFN), in which nanomaterials as a filler are embeded within a polymeric matrix, are being explored to tailor the separation performance and add new functionality to membranes for water purification applications. The objective of this article is to develop a graphene nanocomposite membrane with high performance of water selective permeability (high water flux, high salt rejection, and low reverse solute diffusion) as a next-generation FO desalination membrane. For advances in fabrication of graphene oxide (GO) membranes, layer-by-layer (LBL) technique was used to control the desirable structure, alignment, and chemical functionality that can lead to ultrahigh-permeability membranes due to highly selective transport of water molecules. In this study, the GO nanocomposite membrane fabricated by LBL dip coating method showed high water flux ($J_w/{\Delta}{\pi}=2.51LMH/bar$), water selectivity ($J_w/J_s=8.3L/g$), and salt rejection (99.5%) as well as high stability in aqueous solution and under FO operation condition.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.274-280
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• 2014

Polysulfone (PSf) hollow fiber membranes were prepared via the nonsolvent induced phase separation technique. The cosolvent of ${\gamma}$-butyrolactone (GBL) was added to the polymer solution containing a mixture of PSf and N,N-dimethylacetamide (DMAc). Water was utilized as a precipitation nonsolvent. The morphology of prepared membranes was investigated using a field emission scanning electron microscopy. The fabricated membrane showed a typical asymmetric structure such as the dense layer on the porous support layer by the addition of GBL to the polymer solution. As the concentration of GBL increased, the asymmetric porous structure was shown to be more intensified. It was thought that the added GBL played a role of enhancing the liquid-liquid phase separation of the polymer solution, since the cosolvent of GBL might change the thermodynamic solubility parameter of the doping solution. Permeation properties through the prepared hollow fiber membranes were characterized by measuring the pure water flux and the solute rejection using $0.05{\mu}m$ polystyrene latex (PSL) beads. Experimental results revealed that the use of PEG as the internal coagulant enhanced the pure water flux up to 130 times compared to the use of EG while the rejection of the PSL beads decreased only 5%.