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RIVERBANK FILTRATION AS A PRETREATMENT FOR NANOFILTRATION MEMBRANES
Citation:
Speth*, T F., T. Merkel, AND A. M. Gusses. RIVERBANK FILTRATION AS A PRETREATMENT FOR NANOFILTRATION MEMBRANES. Ray, C., Melin, G., Linsky, R.B., (ed.), Water Science and Technology Library, Vol 43 - Riverbank Filtration - Improving Source-Water Quality, ISBN I-4020-1133-4. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Hingham, MA, 43:261-266, (2003).
Description:
The loss of membrane efficiency due to fouling is one of the main impediments to the development of membrane processes for use in drinking water treatment. Surface waters, in general, have a greater proclivity towards fouling as compared to groundwaters. Riverbank filtration changes a surface water into a water with characteristics close to that of a groundwater. Therefore, riverbank filtation should be an effective pretreatment for nanofiltration or reverse osmosis membrane technologies. In this work, the conventionally-preteated membranes had much shorter calculated cleaning frequencies as compared to the riverbank-prefiltered membranes. The shorter calculated cleaning frequencies demonstrated that the contentionally-pretreated membranes had higher fouling rates. As a further indication that the rivebank-prefiltered membranes experienced less fouling than the conventionally-pretreated membranes, the SW Ohio and Louisville riverbank-prefiltered systems lost 12 and 24% of their initial fluxes over 62 days of operation, respectively, whereas the conventionally-pretreated systems lost between 36-50% of their initial fluxes over the same length of time. These results demonstrate that riverbank filtation is a superior nanofiltration pretreatment than conventional treatment.