This study was conducted to evaluate the filtration performance according to the feed temperature composed of NaCl and the operating pressure of the brackish water reverse osmosis (BWRO) process. The temperature is known that decides the filtration performance of reverse osmosis (RO). It is noted that temperature increase activates the permeate of salts due to augment of diffusivity and mass transfer. Filtration of the lab-scale RO system was performed with constant pressure and the constant flow was simulated. The salt rejection measured by the concentration of the feed and permeate was compared with water permeability and salt permeability in the conditions containing various temperatures (5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30℃) and pressures (10, 12, 15, and 18 bar). An increase in feed temperature from 5 °C to 30 °C caused a 4.65% decrease in salt rejection in CSM, due to an increase in salt permeability (4.06 times) rather than an increase in water permeability (2.62 times). Specific energy consumption (SEC) was calculated by using an electricity meter set in the RO system. It was expected that the SEC by the increases in temperature and pressure decreased due to the viscosity decline of the feed and the permeate flux augment, respectively. The SEC decreased by 63.4% in CSM and by 54.3% in Nittodenko when the feed temperature increased from 5 °C to 30 °C. It discussed how to operate the optimal RO process through the effect of temperature and operating pressure and the comparison of SEC.

In this study, chemically enhanced steam cleaning(CESC) was applied as a novel and efficient method for the control of organic and inorganic fouling in ceramic membrane filtration. The constant filtration regression model and the resistance in series model(RISM) were used to investigate the membrane fouling mechanisms. For total filtration, the coefficient of determination(R2) with an approximate value of 1 was obtained in the intermediate blocking model which is considered as the dominant contamination mechanism. In addition, most of the coefficient values showed similar values and this means that the complex fouling was formed during the filtration period. In the RISM, Rc/Rf increased about 4.37 times in chemically enhanced steam cleaning compared to physical backwashing, which implies that the internal fouling resistance was converted to cake layer resistance, so that the membrane fouling hardly to be removed by physical backwashing could be efficiently removed by chemically enhanced steam cleaning. The results of flux recovery rate showed that high-temperature steam may loosen the structure of the membrane cake layer due to the increase in diffusivity and solubility of chemicals and finally enhance the cleaning effect. As a consequence, it is expected that chemically enhanced steam cleaning can drastically improve the efficiency of membrane filtration process when the characteristics of the foulant are identified.