• Membrane Journal
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.57-62
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• 1994

This study uses pervaporation process to separate small amount of organic trichloroethylene, chloroform and perchloroethylene from contaminated water, since chlorinated hydrocarbones are known to be cancer suspecting compounds. For the separation of small amount of halogenated organic compound dissolved in wastewater, pervaporation membranes should be polymers that possess affinity with orgnic compounds and hydrophobicity. We used polyisobutylene, polyetheramide and polydimethylsiloxane membranes. The degree of affinity between organics and polymers were measured by contact angle method. We had good separation results that separation factor ranged from 34 to 19100 and permeate flux was$19.7~140g/m^2hr$.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.15-26
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• 2015

The compact structure and high-quality effluent of membrane bioreactors make them well-suited for decentralized greywater reclamation. However, the occurrence of membrane fouling continues to limit their effectiveness. To address this concern, a unique membrane module configuration was developed for use in a decentralized greywater treatment system. The module featured local aeration directly below a series of inclined membrane bundles, giving the overall module a twisted appearance compared to a module with vertically orientated fibres. The intent of this design was to increase the frequency and intensity of collisions between rising air bubbles and the membrane surface. Material related to the construction of custom-fit modules is rarely communicated. Therefore, detailed design and assembly procedures were provided in this paper. The twisted module was compared to two commercially available modules with diverse specifications in order to assess the relative performance and marketability of the twisted module with respect to existing products. Contaminant removal efficiencies were determined in terms of biochemical oxygen demand, chemical oxygen demand, ammonia, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, and turbidity for each module. Membrane fouling was monitored in terms of permeate flux, transmembrane pressure, and membrane resistance. Following 168 h of operation, the twisted module configuration demonstrated competitive performance, indicating good potential for further development and commercialization.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.121-137
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• 2010

This work presents inexpensive inorganic precursor formulations to yield submicron range symmetric ceramic microfiltration (MF) membranes whose average pore sizes were between 0.1 and $0.4{\mu}m$. Incidentally, the sintering temperature used in this work was about 800 to $950^{\circ}C$ instead of higher sintering temperatures ($1100^{\circ}C$) that are usually deployed for membrane fabrication. Thermogravimetric (TGA) and X-Ray diffraction (XRD) analysis were carried out to evaluate the effect of temperature on various phase transformations during sintering process. The effect of sintering temperature on structural integrity of the membrane as well as pore size distribution and average pore size were evaluated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis. The average pore sizes of the membranes were increased from 0.185 to $0.332{\mu}m$ with an increase in sintering temperature from 800 to $950^{\circ}C$. However, a subsequent reduction in membrane porosity (from 34.4 to 19.6%) was observed for these membranes. Permeation experiments with both water and air were carried out to evaluate various membrane morphological parameters such as hydraulic pore diameter, hydraulic permeability, air permeance and effective porosity. Later, the membrane prepared with a sintering temperature of $950^{\circ}C$ was tested for the treatment of synthetic oily waste water to verify its real time applicability. The membrane exhibited 98.8% oil rejection efficiency and $5.36{\times}10^{-6}\;m^3/m^2.s$ permeate flux after 60 minutes of experimental run at 68.95 kPa trans-membrane pressure and 250 mg/L oil concentration. Based on retail and bulk prices of the inorganic precursors, the membrane cost was estimated to be $220 /$m^2$ and $1.53 /$m^2$, respectively.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.251-266
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• 2011

This work deals with the use of High Resolution Scanning Electron Microscopy (HRSEM) to verify ultrafiltration membrane selectivity at the end of the production line as well as membrane ageing. The first part of this work is focused on new membranes. It is shown that it is better to use sputtering metallization than vacuum deposition, as this latter technique entails thermal damage to the skin layer. Moreover, the impact of the metallization layer on the determination of the membrane pore size is studied and it is observed that no impact of the metallization step can be clearly defined for a metallization layer ranging from 3 to 12 nm. For example, an average pore size of 16.9 nm and a recovery rate of 6.5 % are observed for a 150 kDa cellulose acetate membrane. These results are in agreement with those given by the manufacturer: pore size ranging from 10 to 15 nm and recovery rate ranging from 5 to 10 %. The second part of this work focuses on the study of membrane ageing. A PVDF hollow fibre membrane is studied. It is shown that a 65 % decrease in the permeate flux can be linked to a decrease in the number of pores at the surface of the membrane and a decrease in the recovery rate. In conclusion, a mapping of the pores is performed for several new hollow fibre membranes used to produce drinking water, made of different materials, with different geometries and molecular weight cut-off. These results provide reference data that will help better understand the phenomena of membrane fouling and membrane ageing.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.141-147
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• 2010

The objective of this study was to assess the biofouling characteristics of the Bacillus biofilm formed on reverse osmosis (RO) membranes. For the study, a sporogenic Bacillus sp. was isolated from the seawater intake to a RO process, with two distinct sets of experiments performed to grow the Bacillus biofilm on the RO membrane using a lab-scale crossflow membrane test unit. Two operational feds were used, 9 L sterile-filtered seawater and 109 Bacillus cells, with flow rates of 1 L/min, and a constant 800 psi-pressure and pH 7.6. From the results, the membrane with more fouling, in which the observed permeate flux decreased to 33% of its initial value, showed about 10 and 100 times greater extracellular polymeric substances and spoOA genes expressions, respectively, than the those of the less fouled membrane (flux declined to 20% of its initial value). Interestingly; however, the number of culturable Bacillus sp. in the more fouled membrane was about 10 times less than that of the less fouled membrane. This indicated that while the number of Bacillus had less relevance with respect to the extent of biofouling, the activation of the genes of interest, which is initiative of biofilm development, had a more positive effect on biofouling than the mass of an individual Bacillus bacterium.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.97-109
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• 2020

Membrane fouling is the main drawback of membrane technology. Frequent membrane cleaning and membrane replacement are, therefore, required to reduce membrane fouling that causes permeate flux reduction, lower rejection, or higher operating pressure. Studies have proved that the alteration of membrane properties is the key controlling factor in lessening membrane fouling. Among stimuli-responsive membranes, thermo-responsive membrane is the most popular, with a drastic phase transition and swelling-shrinking behavior caused by the temperature change. In this study, the thermo-responsive ability of two commercial membranes, PolyCera® Titan membrane and PolyCera® Hydro membrane, at different temperatures was studied on the antifouling function of the membrane in palm oil mill effluent (POME) treatment. The evaluation of the membrane's thermo-responsive ability was done through three cycles of adsorption (fouling) and desorption (defouling) processes in a membrane filtration process. The experimental result depicted that PolyCera® Hydro membrane had a higher membrane permeability of 67.869 L/㎡.h.bar than PolyCera® Titan membrane at 46.011 L/㎡.h.bar. However, the high membrane permeability of PolyCera® Hydro membrane was compensated with low removal efficiency. PolyCera® Titan membrane with a smaller mean pore size had better rejection performance than PolyCera® Hydro membrane for all tested parameters. On the other hand, PolyCera® Titan membrane had a better hydrodynamic cleaning efficiency than PolyCera® Hydro membrane regardless of the hydrodynamic cleaning temperature. The best hydrodynamic cleaning performed by PolyCera® Titan membrane was at 35℃ with the flux recovery ratio (FRR) of 99.17 ± 1.43%. The excellent thermo-responsive properties of the PolyCera® Titan membrane could eventually reduce the frequency of membrane replacement and lessen the use of chemicals for membrane cleaning. This outstanding exploration helps to provide a solution to the chemical industry and membrane technology bottleneck, which is the membrane fouling, thus reducing the operating cost incurred by the membrane fouling.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.563-567
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• 1999

Reverse osmosis concentration for cephalosproin C was studied using a polyamide composite membrane, FT-30 in spiral wound type with high solute rejection. The experiments were carried out in the aqueous solution of cephalosporin C for water flux, solute rejection and mass transfer coefficient under applied pressure of $4{\sim}20kg/cm^2$, feed concentration of 100~1000 mg/L and feed velocity of 2.8 and 5.6 L/min at room temperature. The effect of operating pressure on the separation of cephalosporin C showed that permeate flux increased with increasing operation pressure. These results are consistent with those predicted by Kedem-Katchalsky model. Solute rejection was nearly 1. The increase of feed concentration caused the reduction of cephalosporin C rejection, which was higher at low concentration than at high concentration, but degree of reduction was small.

• Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.57-65
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• 1994

To increase the dissolution rate of practically insoluble biphenyl dimethyl dicarboxylate (DDB), various solid dispersions were prepared with water soluble carriers, such as povidone (PVP K-30), poloxamer 407, sodium deoxycholate (SDC) and polyethylene glycol (PEG) 6000, at drug to carrier ratios of 1:3, 1:5 and 1:10 (w/w) by solvent or fusion method. Dissolution test was performed by the paddle method. The dissolution rate of DDB tablets (25 mg) on market was found to be very low (11.44, 9.02 and 6.42% at pH 1.2, 4.0 and 6.5 after 120 min, respectively). However, dissolution rates of DDB from various solid dispersions were very fast and reached supersaturation within 10 min. DDB-PEG 6000 solid dispersion appeared to be better in enhancing the in vitro dissolution rate than others. Furthermore, the incorporation of DDB and phosphatidylcholine (PC) into ${\beta}-cyclodextrin$ at ratios of 1:2:20, 1:5:20 and 1:10:20 resulted in a 4.9-, 11.2- and 19.6-fold increase in DDB dissolution after 120 min as compared with the pure drug, respectively. This might be attributed to the formation of lipid vesicles which entrapped a certain concentration of DDB during dissolution. On the other hand, the permeation of DDB through rabbit duodenal mucosa was examined using some enhancers such as SDC, sod. glycocholate (SGC) and glycyrrhizic acid ammonium salt (GAA). Only trace amounts of DDB were found to permeate through deuodenal mucosa in the absence of enhancer. SDC was found to markedly decrease the permeation flux of DDB, however, SGC and GAA (5 mM) enhanced the flux of DDB 1.6 and 2.4 times higher as compared with no additive, respectively.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.115-121
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• 2018

Artificial neural network (ANN) simulation is used to predict the dynamic change of permeate flux during wheat starch industry wastewater microfiltration with and without static turbulence promoter. The experimental program spans range of a sedimentation times from 2 to 4 h, for feed flow rates 50 to 150 L/h, at transmembrane pressures covering the range of $1{\times}10^5$ to $3{\times}10^5Pa$. ANN predictions of the wastewater microfiltration are compared with experimental results obtained using two different set of microfiltration experiments, with and without static turbulence promoter. The effects of the training algorithm, neural network architectures on the ANN performance are discussed. For the most of the cases considered, the ANN proved to be an adequate interpolation tool, where an excellent prediction was obtained using automated Bayesian regularization as training algorithm. The optimal ANN architecture was determined as 4-10-1 with hyperbolic tangent sigmoid transfer function transfer function for hidden and output layers. The error distributions of data revealed that experimental results are in very good agreement with computed ones with only 2% data points had absolute relative error greater than 20% for the microfiltration without static turbulence promoter whereas for the microfiltration with static turbulence promoter it was 1%. The contribution of filtration time variable to flux values provided by ANNs was determined in an important level at the range of 52-66% due to increased membrane fouling by the time. In the case of microfiltration with static turbulence promoter, relative importance of transmembrane pressure and feed flow rate increased for about 30%.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.287-298
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• 2019

Lotus leaf has a special dual micro and nano surface structure which gives its highly hydrophobic surface characteristics and so-called self cleaning effect. In order to endow PVDF hollow fiber membrane with this special structure and improve the hydrophobicity of membrane surface, PVDF hollow fiber composite membranes was obtained through the immersion coating of poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene) (PVDF-HFP) dilute solution on the outside surface of PVDF support membrane. The prepared PVDF composite membranes were used in the vacuum membrane distillation (VMD) for the desalination. The effects of PVDF-HFP dilute solution concentration in the dope solution and coating time on VMD separation performance was studied. Membranes were characterized by SEM, WCA measurement, porosity, and liquid entry pressure of water. VMD test was carried out using $35g{\cdot}L^{-1}$ NaCl aqueous solution as the feed solution at feed temperature of $30^{\circ}C$ and the permeate pressure of 31.3 kPa. The vapour flux reached a maximum when PVDF-HFP concentration in the dilute solution was 5 wt% and the coating time was kept in the range of 10-60 s. This was attributed to the well configuration of micro-nano rods which was similar with the dual micro-nano structure on the lotus leaf. Compared with the original PVDF membrane, the salt rejection can be well maintained which was greater than 99.99 % meanwhile permeation water conductivity was kept at a low value of $7-9{\mu}S{\cdot}cm^{-1}$ during the continuous testing for 360 h.