TABLE OF CONTENTS Pages Symposium 1 - the National Sea ...

Introduction
Removal of Protein and TSS from Sea Water by
Foam Separator
Kuen-Hack Suh
Department of Chemical Engineering
Pukyong National University
Pusan, Korea
Sung-Koo Kim
Department of Biotechnology &
Bioengineering
Pukyong National University
Pusan, Korea
In recent years, in Korea, recirculating aquaculture technologies for intensive fish culture
are increasingly being used to enhance production of a high quality aquacultural products
all year around including seawater. In high density aquaculture system, the increase of
protein and organic particulates by uneaten feed, feed waste and excreta of fish gives a
bad effect in fish growth and environment. Also protein and organic particulates are
decomposed to ammonia nitrogen and nitrite nitrogen which are harmful to fish and also
these cause consumption of dissolved oxygen. The foam separation has been considered
as a process for removal of protein and suspended solids in aquacultural water (Chen et
at., 1994; Suh and Lee, 1995).
The objective of this research is to determine the feasibility of foam separator for the
removal of aquacultural waste, such as protein, total suspended solid (TSS) and organic
compound from marine aquacultural water. The removal rate and the removal efficiency
of the foam separator have been studied by changing the initial concentrations of protein
and TSS, hydraulic residence time, superficial air velocity and air distributor pore size as
experimental variables. In addition, the foam separator as an aerator was also evaluated
for increasing dissolved oxygen concentration.
Materials and Methods
The foam separator was composed of a separation column, foam riser, foam collector and
air distributor. The height of separation column was 600 mm and liquid volume was 1000
mL. The air from an air pump was introduced into the column through a rotameter and an
air distributor. For most of the experiment, a sintered glass disc of G3 pore size and 25
mm i.d. was emploved as an air distributor. Peristaltic pumps were used to introduce
experimental water at the top of the separation column. Liquid samples were taken from
an outlet which was raised up to the water surface level in separation column.
1
Byong-Jin Kim
Department of Chemical Engineering
Pukyong National University
Pusan, Korea
Jae-Yoon Jo
Department of Aquaculture
Pukyong National University
Pusan, Korea