Water treatment for drinking purpose: ceramic microfiltration application

Conventional treatment of raw water for the municipal supply of drinking wa ter may include chemical addition, coagulation, flocculation, sedimentation , filtration and disinfection, usually with chlorine. The reason for a larg er use of membrane filtration systems, such as microfiltration and ultrafil tration, in this field, is mainly due for example to the ability of the mem brane to remove pathogenic microorganisms as well as to control the disinfe ction by-products (DBPs) precursor. In this paper the use of microfiltratio n ceramic membranes for the treatment of raw water drawn from a lake locate d near Genoa is studied. The behaviour of permeate flux as a function of op erating variables such as temperature, transmembrane pressure, and test dur ation is analysed. Membrane retention towards particles, microorganisms, al gae and DBPs precursor is also investigated.