Ultrafiltration is a membrane process with the ability to separate molecules in solution based on size. It is a pressure driven process with a typical nominal pore size of 0.01 micron (100,000MWCO), and configurations are either cross flow or dead end filtration. UF removes bacteria and protozoa, including giardia and cryptosporidium. Reduces turbidity to < 0.1 NTU and removes 6 log of viruses. UF is ideal as pretreatment to reverse osmosis, final treatment in the pharmaceutical industry, and potable water applications for a wide range of feed sources in the municipal market. Hollow fiber multibore membrane is the most resilient and reliable membrane manufactured.

It is a type of hollow fiber, internal pressure UF membrane module. Hollow fiber membranes have significant advantages over other types of membranes, including moderate energy requirements, large surface per unit volume, flexibility in operation, and relatively low operating cost. Our hollow fiber UF membranes are made of improved PVC, which is hydrophilic, pollution proof, anti‐acid and anti‐alcohol, and free of dirty block. UF membranes achieve high water productivity under low pressure, thus greatly reducing operating cost. .
UF membranes have been successfully used to remove aerosols, colloids and animalcules in water. Under certain water pressures, water and other small molecules permeate the UF membrane while aerosol, colloid, and animalcule particles are blocked on the inner surface of the UF membrane. The tiny aperture in the UF membrane fiber is so small that suspended particles, colloids, bacteria and macromolecular organisms are blocked in water. These blocked substances accumulate on the inner surface of the membrane, so it is necessary to conduct regular back washing and purge these UF membrane modules with chemicals to clean the membrane surface.

Hollow fiber ultrafiltration (UF) is widely accepted today for municipal water treatment applications including production of drinking water from surface water and water reuse applications. UF is also used for industrial water treatment including pretreatment to spiral-wound reverse osmosis (RO) membranes for production of high purity water. Because of the increasing awareness of the need for adequate pretreatment, there has been significant interest in UF as pretreatment for RO for municipal applications in brackish and seawater desalination plants.

Depending on the feed water quality, extensive pretreatment may be needed to provide water that is suitable for RO feed, because the brine spacer in an RO element can be susceptible to solids plugging. UF provides excellent pretreatment to RO because it can consistently deliver filtrate with very low turbidity, regardless of feed water quality. Conventional pretreatment may not reliably produce consistent, high quality water, especially when the feed water changes. In addition, compared to conventional water treatment technologies, UF systems require less space and often have lower operating costs.

UF membranes provide a physical barrier between the feed and product water and they have pore sizes in the range of 0.01 micron. These membranes remove very small contaminants in the feed water, including essentially all suspended solids, colloidal particles, and bacteria and viruses. In general, UF filtrate turbidity is less than 0.1 NTU and has an SDI15 (Silt Density Index) of less than three. This is ideal feed to RO. High quality and consistent feed water can be expected to lead to improved RO system operation, including lower operating pressure for a given flux, less frequent membrane cleaning and less risk of plugging the element with suspended solids.

Microfiltration is a pressure-driven barrier to suspended solids and bacteria to produce water with very high purity. It is also used as pretreatment for surface water, seawater, and biologically treated municipal effluent before reverse osmosis and other membrane systems.

The MBR process utilises the well proven activated sludge process, but replaces conventional final settlement with an ultrafine membrane which effectively filters the final effluent.

Benefits of MBR

- The membrane is an extremely effective solids separation device.
- High removal efficiency results in a very high effluent quality (2/2/0.5mg/l or better).
- Simplicity of system design.
- Reactor volume is greatly reduced when compared with an activated sludge plant basin due to the fact that it runs at active MLSS values up to 15,000 mg/l, compared with typical values for conventional activated plants of 3000 to 5000 mg/l.
- No requirement for final settlement tanks.
- Offers bacterial removal without the need for complicated ultra violet radiation systems.
- Water re-use applications.