Pages

Ads 468x60px

vendredi 13 mars 2015

An Overview Of Membrane Systems

By Leslie Ball


Recently, development in technology have given rise to breakthroughs in treatment of wastewater and reclamation of water for reuse. Membrane systems is included in this progress. It has risen up as an important innovation for reclamation and treatment in addition to being a leading in upgrade and expansion of the wastewater plants.

The early usage of the membrane wastewater treatment was in practice about thirty years ago. However, in the past decade, a rapid increase in volume of wastewater being treated has been experienced to be of exponentially high standards and it is typically for reuse purpose. As a matter of fact, many municipal facilities on wastewater treatment are adopting this technology to an even larger magnitude as the technology provides unparalleled ability to meet rigorous requirements.

Since this process has the ability of separating at molecular levels up to the point where particles can be seen, it hence implies that larger amounts of separation requirements are able to be met through this membrane processes. The technology at most time does not require phase changes so as to make separations. As a result, energy needs become relatively low unless there may be a need for large energy amounts to increase the pressure of the steam needed to drive permeating components across the membrane.

The ability of membranes to remove stubborn contaminants that become difficult for other technologies to remove makes the membranes to uniquely tower above the others as a great option. They are very economical in costs in comparison to other alternatives. They in addition need only very minimal land area compared to other competing brands. Ability to replace several treatment processes units using just a single unit has made this a possibility.

In application to wastewater treatment, membranes are currently getting used as tertiary advanced treatments in the removal of some dissolved species. This species are usually comprised of; phosphorous, nitrogen species, organic compounds, human pathogens, and various others. Technologies which have adopted to the use of membranes include; high and low pressure membranes and the membrane bioreactors.

Among major challenges that face membrane usage in the treatment of wastewater include high potential fouling. This fouling is in most cases resulted by microorganisms not properly cleared by regular pretreatment methods, colloids, and other soluble compounds that are organic. This fouling in most cases rise up pressure of the feed resulting to need for a frequent membranes cleanup.

The above leads to a reduction in efficiency in addition to shortening the life span of the membranes. Other technical barriers that may come along the way may include complexity and expensive costs of disposing the concentrate or the residual from the membranes which are of high pressure. In addition membranes may have chemical incompatibilities with the process solution leading to the system weakening to an extent their lifetimes become unacceptably short.

Adaptation of wastewater treatment by the use of membranes is on the increase. The option is not only viable but in most cases also a smart move especially when considering to upgrade plants and expanding capacity. This approach is beneficial in land lock situations such as agriculture, urban or industrial reuse; recharge of groundwater and salinity barriers; and also in the augmentation of mobile water supplies that meet low effluent nutrients.




About the Author:



Aucun commentaire:

Enregistrer un commentaire

 

Sample text

Sample Text

Sample Text

 
Blogger Templates