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Membranes
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Advances in Reverse Osmosis Membranes and Processes
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Advances in Reverse Osmosis Membranes and Processes

A special issue of Membranes (ISSN 2077-0375). This special issue belongs to the section "Membrane Processing and Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 August 2020) | Viewed by 17413

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Lee Nuang Sim

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Singapore Membrane Technology Centre, Nanyang Environment and Water Research Institute, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 637141, Singapore
Interests: reverse osmosis; fouling; fouling detection; fouling control; process design
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Jia Shin Ho

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Singapore Membrane Technology Centre, Nanyang Environment and Water Research Institute, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 637141, Singapore
Interests: reverse osmosis; fouling; fouling detection; fouling control; biofouling

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Reverse osmosis (RO) technology is a well-established process that is typically used for the production of drinking and/or industrial reusable water from brackish water, seawater, and wastewater. Although widely used in most desalination plants, the RO process still requires further improvement in terms of separation efficiency, energy consumption, and fouling control. The separation efficiency of the RO process, in particular, not only depends on membrane material but also requires strong developments in membrane engineering, such as module design, fouling detection, and control strategies, as well as upstream pre-treatment technologies.

This Special Issue is dedicated to providing comprehensive coverage on the recent developments in RO membrane design, fabrication, and processes. Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the fabrication of RO membrane using novel materials and fabrication methods, the optimization of the RO process through module and process design, fouling detection methods and fouling control strategies, and pre-treatment technologies to enhanced RO processes. Authors are invited to submit their latest results; both original papers and reviews are welcome.

Dr. Lee Nuang Sim
Dr. Jia Shin Ho
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Membranes is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Desalination
  • Reverse osmosis membrane
  • Membrane fabrication
  • Membrane module design
  • Novel membrane
  • Fouling
  • RO pre-treatment
  • Process optimization

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

21 pages, 5296 KiB  
Article
Effects of the Substrate on Interfacial Polymerization: Tuning the Hydrophobicity via Polyelectrolyte Deposition
by Xin Liu, Ge Liu, Weiyi Li, Qinyu Wang and Baolin Deng
Membranes 2020, 10(10), 259; https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes10100259 - 26 Sep 2020
Cited by 15 | Viewed by 3033
Abstract
Interfacial polymerization (IP) has been the key method for the fabrication of the thin film composite (TFC) membranes that are extensively employed in reverse osmosis (RO) and forward osmosis (FO). However, the role of the substrate surface hydrophilicity in the formation of the [...] Read more.
Interfacial polymerization (IP) has been the key method for the fabrication of the thin film composite (TFC) membranes that are extensively employed in reverse osmosis (RO) and forward osmosis (FO). However, the role of the substrate surface hydrophilicity in the formation of the IP-film remains a controversial issue to be further addressed. This study characterized the IP films formed on a series of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) substrates whose hydrophilicities (from ~38 to ~93 degrees) were varied via different approaches, including the alkaline treatment and the deposition of various polycations. It was revealed that delamination could occur when the IP film was formed on a relatively hydrophilic surface; the integrity of the TFC membranes was substantially improved, owing to the modification of the polyelectrolyte deposition. On the other hand, the characterization indicated that the TFC membrane could have an enhanced efficiency (with a factor of ~2) when the substrate was relatively hydrophilic. It was established that the polyelectrolyte deposition could be exploited to effectively tune the substrate surface hydrophobicity, thereby providing more degrees of freedom for the optimization of the TFC membranes fabrication. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Reverse Osmosis Membranes and Processes)
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19 pages, 4222 KiB  
Article
Antifouling Property of Oppositely Charged Titania Nanosheet Assembled on Thin Film Composite Reverse Osmosis Membrane for Highly Concentrated Oily Saline Water Treatment
by Nor Akalili Ahmad, Pei Sean Goh, Abdul Karim Zulhairun and Ahmad Fauzi Ismail
Membranes 2020, 10(9), 237; https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes10090237 - 16 Sep 2020
Cited by 21 | Viewed by 4269
Abstract
With the blooming of oil and gas industries, oily saline wastewater treatment becomes a viable option to resolve the oily water disposal issue and to provide a source of water for beneficial use. Reverse osmosis (RO) has been touted as a promising technology [...] Read more.
With the blooming of oil and gas industries, oily saline wastewater treatment becomes a viable option to resolve the oily water disposal issue and to provide a source of water for beneficial use. Reverse osmosis (RO) has been touted as a promising technology for oily saline wastewater treatment. However, one great challenge of RO membrane is fouling phenomena, which is caused by the presence of hydrocarbon contents in the oily saline wastewater. This study focuses on the fabrication of antifouling RO membrane for accomplishing simultaneous separation of salt and oil. Thin film nanocomposite (TFN) RO membrane was formed by the layer by layer (LbL) assembly of positively charged TNS (pTNS) and negatively charged TNS (nTNS) on the surface of thin film composite (TFC) membrane. The unique features, rendered by hydrophilic TNS bilayer assembled on TFC membrane in the formation of a hydration layer to enhance the fouling resistance by high concentration oily saline water while maintaining the salt rejection, were discussed in this study. The characterization findings revealed that the surface properties of membrane were improved in terms of surface hydrophilicity, surface roughness, and polyamide(PA) cross-linking. The TFC RO membrane coated with 2-bilayer of TNS achieved >99% and >98% for oil and salt rejection, respectively. During the long-term study, the 2TNS-PA TFN membrane outperformed the pristine TFC membrane by exhibiting high permeability and much lower fouling propensity for low to high concentration of oily saline water concentration (1000 ppm, 5000 ppm and 10,000 ppm) over a 960 min operation. Meanwhile, the average permeability of uncoated TFC membrane could only be recovered by 95.7%, 89.1% and 82.9% for 1000 ppm, 5000 ppm and 10,000 ppm of the oily saline feedwater, respectively. The 2TNS-PA TFN membrane achieved almost 100% flux recovery for three cycles by hydraulic washing. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Reverse Osmosis Membranes and Processes)
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12 pages, 2903 KiB  
Article
Recovery of Aromatics from Orange Juice Evaporator Condensate Streams by Reverse Osmosis
by Fitim Destani, Attilio Naccarato, Antonio Tagarelli and Alfredo Cassano
Membranes 2020, 10(5), 92; https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes10050092 - 8 May 2020
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 3601
Abstract
The aim of this work was to analyze the potential of reverse osmosis (RO) membranes in the recovery and concentration of aroma compounds from orange juice evaporator condensate (EC) streams. Concentration experiments were performed by using three RO spiral-wound aromatic polyamide membranes (SG1812C-34D, [...] Read more.
The aim of this work was to analyze the potential of reverse osmosis (RO) membranes in the recovery and concentration of aroma compounds from orange juice evaporator condensate (EC) streams. Concentration experiments were performed by using three RO spiral-wound aromatic polyamide membranes (SG1812C-34D, SC1812C-34D and SE1812) with different NaCl rejections. The effect of transmembrane pressure, axial feed flowrate and volume concentration ratio (VCR) on permeate flux was studied. Rejections of the investigated membranes towards specific aroma compounds (octanol, α-terpineol, terpinen-4-ol, cis-carveol, karvon, linalool) in selected operating conditions were also evaluated. The concentrations of the aroma compounds were determined by gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS) using headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) as a sample preparation approach. For all selected membranes, the permeate flux increased linearly by increasing the operating pressure from 5 to 25 bar; on the other hand, the feed flowrate did not have any significant effect on the permeate flux. High retention values towards aroma compounds (>80%) were measured for all selected membranes. However, the SC membrane showed the highest rejection values (>96%) and the best correlation between concentration factor of aroma compounds and VCR. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Reverse Osmosis Membranes and Processes)
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17 pages, 3554 KiB  
Article
Exclusion of Estrogenic and Androgenic Steroid Hormones from Municipal Membrane Bioreactor Wastewater Using UF/NF/RO Membranes for Water Reuse Application
by Mujahid Aziz and Tunde Ojumu
Membranes 2020, 10(3), 37; https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes10030037 - 27 Feb 2020
Cited by 35 | Viewed by 5353
Abstract
In the context of water scarcity, domestic secondary effluent reuse may be an option as a reliable source for alleviating acute water shortage. The increasing risks linked with the presence of natural steroid hormones and many emerging anthropogenic micropollutants (MPs) passing through municipal [...] Read more.
In the context of water scarcity, domestic secondary effluent reuse may be an option as a reliable source for alleviating acute water shortage. The increasing risks linked with the presence of natural steroid hormones and many emerging anthropogenic micropollutants (MPs) passing through municipal wastewater treatment works (MWWTWs) are of concern for their endocrine-disrupting activities. In this study, domestic wastewater treated by a full-scale membrane bioreactor (MBR) at an MWWTW in the Western Cape Province, South Africa, was used directly as the influent to a reverse osmosis (RO) pilot plant for the removal of selected natural steroid hormones 17β-estradiol (E2) and testosterone (T) as a potential indirect water recycling application. Estrogenicity and androgenicity were assessed using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) and the recombinant yeast estrogen receptor binding assays (YES). The influent pH and flux did not influence the rejection of E2 and T, which was most likely due to adsorption, size exclusion, and diffusion simultaneously. RO and nanofiltration (NF) exhibited excellent removal rates (>95%) for E2 and T. All the E2 effluent samples with MBR/ultrafiltration (UF), MBR/NF, and MBR/RO were lower than the US EPA and WHO trigger value of 0.7 ng/L, as well as the predicted no-effect concentration (PNEC) values for fish (1 ng E2/L). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Reverse Osmosis Membranes and Processes)
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