What is Membrane Water Treatment Technology and What makes it unique?

Membrane technology applied to water treatment has been of vital importance in recent decades as it has allowed the expansion of desalination and water reuse technologies, in addition to other technological applications at an industrial level to obtain treated water from groundwater, surface or wastewater for supply, irrigation, and other municipal and industrial uses.

When we talk about membrane technology we refer to the generic term that encompasses a series of different separation processes but that have in common the use of a membrane that acts as a specific filter, letting some components pass while retaining others. Thus, Membrane processes can be used to concentrate or purify a solution or to fractionate it.

In the field of water treatment, the first commercial membranes developed in the 20s of the 20th century were used for bacteriological decontamination. But it is not until the 1960s of the 20th century that the use of membranes begins to see other horizons, with the invention of Sidney Loeb and Srinivasa Sourirajan of the semi-permeable anisotropic membrane that enables commercial uses of Reverse Osmosis filtration systems.

These membranes consisted of an ultra-thin film arranged on microporous support that provided mechanical resistance. Both the membranes and the processes have matured and since the 90s, the different membrane technologies are quite established processes both in the field of desalination and in the treatment of wastewater for subsequent reuse.

What is the membrane?

Membranes are physical barriers that allow the separation of two fluids, making possible the movement of different components through the said physical barrier by some selective method, allowing some component or components to pass through it, and restricting others' passage. Components.

For the separation to be carried out, the membrane must be sensitive to one or more molecular or Physico-chemical properties of the components, so the membrane must have certain chemical or structural properties, and depend on this we find different classifications of the types of membranes.

Besides, all membrane processes have a feed stream, which is divided into two:

· The permeate, which is the fluid that has passed through the membrane and is, therefore, richer in the substances with a greater tendency to pass through it.

· The rejection or concentrate is the fluid in which all the substances that do not cross the membrane are collected.

For the transport of components through the membrane to occur, the action of a driving force on the feed stream is necessary. This driving force can be of different types, such as pressure, concentration, temperature or electrical potential.

The most used membrane processes today are the following:

· Microfiltration (MF)

· Ultrafiltration (UF)

· Nanofiltration (NF)

· Reverse Osmosis (RO)

· Electrodialysis (ED)

What makes Membrane Water Treatment Technology reliable?

There is commercial equipment with a different arrangement of membranes, to adapt to different conditions.

Thus, offer the following configurations:

Membrane cartridge

The membranes are folded around the permeate collector. They are compact systems, ideal for creating solutions with a low concentration of suspended solids, and are often used with filtration and microfiltration membranes.

Spiral membranes

A set of membrane sheets, separated from each other by porous support, is wound around a tube that acts as a permeate collector. It is a very compact design, is cost-effective and suitable Reliable Filtration System.

It is generally used with nanofiltration and reverse osmosis membranes.

Tubular membrane

The tubular membranes are placed inside a rigid casing. The feed enters through the interior of the membranes and the flow is in the direction of the exterior. Due to the diameter of the membrane tube, 5 to 10 mm, clogging problems are unlikely. It is suitable for effluents with a high concentration of suspended solids. It is often used for ultrafiltration applications.

Plate and frame filter

It physically resembles a filter press. The membranes are placed on the frames separated by plates and the feed runs through the space between the plates and the membranes. On one side of the membrane, the solids are concentrated and on the other, the permeate is evacuated.

This arrangement is only used when the food has a high viscosity, generally in applications in the pharmaceutical and food industries.

Hollow fiber

Our process consists of a large number of membranes with a diameter of less than 0.1 mm that constitutes a bundle inside a housing.

It is used practically only for nanofiltration and reverses osmosis applications to treat effluents with a low concentration of solids.