What are the contaminants that can be removed using each membrane listed above?
Microfiltration (MF) 1-0.1μmpores
• Bacteria • Particles • Asbestos • cellular materials like red blood cells
Ultrafiltration (UF) 0.1-0.001μmpores
• Large particles • Microorganisms • Dissolved bio macromolecules such as pyrogen, protein • Viruses
Nanofiltration (NF) 1nm-10nmpores
• Organic molecules • Divalent ions • Viruses • A range of salts
Reverse osmosis (RO) No pores
• Minerals • salt ions and metal ions • All viruses • Organic substances • Pesticides and Detergents • Nitrates and sulphates • Arsenic and Fluoride • Lead
2. How the RO membranes work?
Reverse osmosis will work using high pressure of pump and when the pressure is increased the water molecules will pass through the semi permeable membrane whenever the contaminants will not allow to pass through the membrane. Here the contaminants will discharge to the reject stream which has high concentration of contaminants. Then, the pressure of the pump that require to overcome from osmotic pressure will depend on the amount of concentration of contaminants in water. High pressure will need when the concentration is high. In addition, the cross filtering should be used in RO membrane in order to have effective filtering because in cross filtering contaminants will not remain on the membrane layer like in standard filtering. In cross filtering contaminated water will discharge to a reject stream and due to that the membrane will not block and also water will have enough turbulence to have clean surface of membrane. Then before enter to the RO membrane various types of pre-treatment will require according to the type of water source and then after passing through the membrane post treatment also will be needed. The, the inlet water to the RO membrane is called as feed water and the outlet filtered water is called as permeate water which has less concentration of contaminants. The process of the RO membrane ha shown using below diagram.