본 연구에서는 고투과성 및 높은 염 제거율을 가지는 역삼투막의 성능향상을 위하여 다양한 첨가제 및 계면중합 시 경화 온도 및 시간에 따른 특성평가에 대한 연구가 수행되었다. 첨가제가 없는 막과 첨가제를 첨가한 막의 모폴로지는 모 두 “ridge-and-valley” 구조를 나타내어, 폴리아미드 층이 다공성 지지층 표면에 성공적으로 중합되었음을 확인하였다. 또한 2-Ethyl-1,3-hexanediol (EHD) 첨가함으로써 향상된 친수성과 수투과율 가졌으며, 이는 접촉각 측정을 통해서 확인되었다. 최 종적으로 97.78%와 98.7%의 NaCl 및 MgSO4 제거율과 3.31 L/(m2⋅h⋅bar)의 높은 수투과율을 가진 고투과성 계면중합막을 제조하였다.

The production process of ultra-pure water (UPW) involves dozens of unit processes such as reverse osmosis (RO), pretreatments, membrane degasifier, and several ion exchange processes. Recently, continuous electrodeionization (CEDI) has replaced the 2-bed and 3-tower (2B3T) ion exchange process. As a result, the majority of wastewater in UPW production now comes from the RO concentrate. The important of RO in UPW production is to produce high-quality water with a low ion concentration (around 1 mg/L) for CEDI feed water. Minimizing RO concentrate is essential to reduce the wastewater produced in the UPW production process. This can be achieved by maximizing the recovery of the RO system. However, increasing the recovery is limited by the water quality of the RO permeate. To ensure high-quality permeate water, the RO system is designed with a two-pass configuration. The recovery of each pass in the RO system is limited (e.g., < 85%) due to the expected increase in permeate water concentration at higher RO feed water concentrations. Interestingly, tests using 4-inch RO modules with low concentration feed water (≤ 35 mg/L as NaCl) revealed that the permeate concentration remains almost constant regardless of the feed water concentration. This implies that the recovery of the first RO pass can be increased as long as the average feed/concentrate concentration of the second RO pass is less than 35 mg/L. According to this design criterion for the RO system, the recovery of the first and second RO pass, with a feed water concentration of 250 mg/L as NaCl, can be increased up to 94.8% and 96.0%, respectively. Compared to the conventional RO system design (e.g., 70% and 80% for the first and second RO pass) for UPW production, this maximum recovery design reduces the volume of RO feed and concentrate by up to 38.4% and 89.2%, respectively.

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, using the developed pilot device, an experiment was conducted with groundwater according to the calcium carbonate concentration and silica concentration for a certain period of time to determine the degree of RO membrane contamination according to water quality. In addition, using wastewater with severe fouling of raw water, the treatment efficiency is compared through an experiment with a pilot device, the operation progress is evaluated for the scale effect, and the stability and convenience of the developed product are considered.

무삼투압차 역삼투압(Δπ= 0)은 KAIST H. N. Chang 명예교수가 2013년 발명, 2014년 미국 특허 출원, 2018년 특 허 취득(US 9,950,297) 해수담수화기술. Chang 등의 RO 기술은 삼투압 조정조와 저압 역삼투압의 2 챔버로 구성. Chang 등은 소금물을 비롯한 모든 수용액은 물과 용질(소금)로 완전 분리 가능 주장. 삼투압차 조정조, 저압 역삼투압조 2 챔버로 구성됨. 고농도 용액의 삼투압은 1908년 미국화학회지 출간된 MIT G. N. Lewis식 이용. 두 번째 특허(US 10,953,3367)에서 RO가 10~12 bar 저 삼투압차 수행 가능 증명. 세 번째 특허(Korea 10-2322755, 해외 출원 중) Singularity ZERO 활용하면 기존 RO 에 비해 물은 50% 추가, 막 면적은 1/3, 이론에너지는 1/5, 동일 용량의 S-ZERO 기술은 기존 RO 건설비의 50~60%로 예측됨.

정수기는 일반적인 산업용 막여과 수처리 공정과 다르게 운전과 휴지를 반복하는 특성이 있다. 이러한 특징 때문 에 역삼투막을 사용하는 정수기의 경우, 재정수시에 정수수의 농도가 정상적인 값보다 높게 나오는 현상(제거율이 정상값보 다 낮게 나오는 현상)이 있는데, 이를 “TDS creep”이라고 한다. 본 연구에서는 휴지시간과 농도에 따른 TDS creep 정도를 관 찰하였다. 또한, TDS creep 현상을 저감하기 위해 원수 세척, 정수부의 부피 증가 및 정수 세척 방법 등을 시험하였고 이에 대한 실질적인 효과를 관찰하였다. 이러한 방법들 중에 정수수의 세척과 같이 역삼투막의 feed side와 permeate side의 농도차 를 최소화하는 것이 TDS creep 현상을 해소하는 궁극적인 해결책임을 확인하였다.

In this study, a pilot-scale (3 m3/day) membrane distillation (MD) process was operated to treat digestate produced from anaerobic digestion of livestock wastewater. In order to evaluate the performance and energy cost of MD process, it was compared with the pilot scale (10 m3/day) reverse osmosis (RO) process, expected competitive process, under same feed condition. As results, MD process shows stable permeate flux (average 10.1 L/m2/hr) until 150 hours, whereas permeate flux of RO process was decreased from 5.3 to 1.5 L/m2/hr within 24 hours. In the case of removal of COD, TN, and TP, MD process shows a high removal rate (98.7, 93.7, and 99% respectively) stably until 150 hours. However, in the case of RO process, removal rate was decreased from 91.6 to 69.5% in COD and from 93.7 to 76.0% in TP during 100 hours of operation. Removal rate of TN in RO process was fluctuated in the range of 34.5-62.9% (average 44.6%) during the operation. As a result of energy cost analysis, MD process using waste heat for heating the feed shows 18% lower cost compare with RO process. Thus, overall efficiency of the MD process is higher then that of the RO process in terms of permeate flux, removal rate of salts, and operating cost (in the case of using waste heat) in treating the anaerobic digestate of livestock wastewater.