The objective of current research aims at manufacturing and testing of membrane module for reverse osmosis. Information on the design of several different types of membrane modules were gathered and compared. With this information, a simple spiral-wound type of membrane module was constructed and the influence of module design on the performance was experimentally studied. As a result, several important design variables and know-hows on the construction of reverse osmosis membrane module were obtained. Penicillin recovery from waste water was studied for its possible application.
Spiral-wound type module was selected for the reverse osmosis module due to its simplicity in design and its use in the high pressure application. BW 30-4021 spiral module of Film-Tec company was analyzed in detail and the module wound with $800cm^2$ was manufactured using SEPA-92 membrane of Osmonics.
The permeability of pure water through the module was $0.272L/m^2$. h.atm which amounted to 13% of the cell test. The lower permeability was attributed to the flow resistance through the supporting material inserted between the two membrane envelopes. As the applied pressure increased, the permeability and salt rejection tended to increase. With 3,000 ppm NaCl and under the applied pressure of 40 atm 0.74L/min, the flux of $3.6L/m^2$ .h and rejection of 91.5% were obtained. The permeability and the flux were dependent on the inlet flow rate to the module and the degree of packing. For the uniform flow distribution to the module, several distributor tips were designed, among which $30^\circ$ cone-type distributor was mot preferable. The important factors to improve the performance of the module are the design of inlet head space for balanced flow distribution, the development of supporting materials for good permeate flux, and the operation at high inlet flow rate and pressure to maintain a good function of membrane. The module seems to be applicable to the desalination, desalting of industrial waste water and recovery of micro quantity of antibiotics from fermentation broth. In the case of penicillin recovery with the concentration of penicillin 5,000ppm, 40 atm and inlet flow rate 0.80L/min, flux of $4.5L/m^2$ .h and rejection of 94% were obtained.
The result of the present study will be useful for the construction of reverse osmosis module to be made in Korea. Also, the current technique and know-hows of module construction will be useful in the manufacture of the ultrafiltration and gas separation modules.