COMPARISON OF VARIOUS MEMBRANE TYPES AND MODULE CONFIGURATIONS IN THETREATMENT OF NATURAL-WATER BY MEANS OF LOW-PRESSURE MEMBRANE METHODS

For the treatment of potable water, membrane methods are being introdu ced currently, in particular microfiltration (MF) or ultrafiltration ( UF). UF and MF membranes constitute an effective barrier for suspensio ns, bacteria, viruses and other microorganisms, and therefore they are taken into consideration as clarification and disinfection stages of water treatment within a single operation. There are other advantages involving the application of membrane techniques for water treatment, such as: production of water having invariable quality, much smaller q uantities of chemical substances added in the process and lower consum ption of energy. The paper presents the results of research investigat ions on the application of polymeric and ceramic MF and UF membranes o f different configuration (flat, tubular-multichannel and capillary sy stems) for the removal of impurities from ground waters. Ultrafiltrati on polymeric flat membranes were made of polyacrylonitrile and polysul fone, whereas the capillary MF module was made of polypropylene (Euro- Sep, Warsaw). UF and MF ceramic membranes based on zirconium oxide wer e provided by the French firm Tech-Sep. The effectiveness of membrane water treatment has been evaluated based on the volume of water flux ( permeate) as well as on microbiological and physicochemical analysis o f raw water and permeate. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights re served.