REMOVAL OF MICROORGANISM BY MEMBRANE FILTRATION METHOD

4.1 INTRODUCTION

The conventional water treatment using filtration bed of sand and gravel only removes a certain
size of microorganism that present in the water and still may contain some pathogenic bacteria.
To narrow this gap, membrane technology is evolved which can separate the tiny particle and
organism (typically 0.0001 to 1µm) from the infected water with the use of semipermeable
membrane. Membrane filtration include microfiltration (MF), ultrafiltration (UF),
nanofiltration (NF), reverse osmosis (RO), dialysis and electrodialysis (ED).

4.1.2 MEMBRANE MATERIAL AND CONFIGURATION

It consists of thin membrane structure (0.2 to 0.25µm) sandwich by more porous and more
thick membrane structure (about 100µm). They may be available in the form of thin sheets,
tubular form or fine hollow fiber.
Membrane material can be either organic or inorganic depending upon the nature of treatment,
water quality, clogging and deterioration problem. Generally, organic membrane is used for
wastewater treatment. Organic membrane materials include cellulose acetate, polypropylene,
thin film composite etc while inorganic membrane material consists of ceramic, silica, carbon
nanotubes, metals like stainless steel, graphene oxide etc.

Figure 2: Layer of membrane and tubular membrane mechanism.

TYPES
MF, UF, NF, RO involve the application of hydraulic pressure. Dialysis involves movement of
constituent through the membrane by concentration difference and electrodialysis involve the
electromotive force.

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In MF and UF, separation mechanism of microorganism and particle through membrane
involve straining(sieving) while NF and RO involve straining as well as adsorption.

Figure 4: Comparision of particle size removal and membrane size

4.2.2 ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF MF

Advantages:
1. Footprint (Area) required is small (50-80% less) with comparison with the convectional
depth filter
2. Can remove bacteria and viruses which are not removed by the convectional depth filter.
3. As compared with other membrane filtration, it has low fouling problem.
4. It can operate in low pressure than other membrane technology.
5. It is a chemical free and environmentally friendly process of treatment of bacteria, viruses
and other impurity.
Disadvantages:
1. It uses energy to apply hydraulic pressure thus it is not energy efficient method.
2. It require pretreatment before loading to the MF to reduce fouling problem.
3. Need membrane replacement after 3 to 5 year and frequent cleaning due to fouling.
4. It can only remove limited particle and cannot remove small bacteria, viruses, harmful
dissolved particles and metallic ions.

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Reverse osmosis
Reverse osmosis technology is a membrane separation technology for pure water that makes
use of reverse osmosis membrane to selectively pass through the solvent in the solution (usually
water). It takes pressure as the driving force to overcome the osmotic pressure of water. The
process is a permeation process that is contrary to the natural infiltration In order to produce
reverse osmosis pressure, a water pump is required to exert pressure on a saline solution or
waste water. When the pressure is equal to the natural osmotic pressure of the solution, the
flow of the solvent will not occur. If the pressure is less than the natural osmotic pressure of
the solution, the solvent flows from the dilute solution to the concentrated solution, and if not,
the solvent will flow through the reverse osmosis membrane, so as to form dilute solution on
the opposite side, and form a more concentrated solution on the side of pressure. All these will
achieve solute separation and effectively remove salt, colloid, microorganism, heat source,
organic matter and so on. In other words, the principle of desalination by using reverse osmosis
membrane is to apply more pressure than natural osmosis pressure in water with salt (such as
raw water). This will make the permeation go in the opposite direction, and press the water
molecules in the raw water to the other side of the membrane, so as to achieve the purpose of
removing the salt in the water. Reverse osmosis is also one of the most advanced membrane
separation technologies in the world.

Advantages
Reverse osmosis membrane technology is the most advanced and most energy-saving
separation technology. It is a physical method. It has many advantages the operation of reverse
osmosis only relies on pressure as a driving force. It has the lowest energy consumption
compared with other traditional physical processing means, and it saves energy. Reverse
osmosis can be carried out at room temperature without phase change. Reverse osmosis does
not use chemical treatment reagents and it does not discharge chemical waste liquid. So it
hardly pollute the environment. The space of operation equipment is small and the operation is
simple. The water quality is excellent and the efficiency is high.
Disadvantages

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In the process of continuous application, the shortcomings of reverse osmosis are increasingly
revealed. For example, the operation and management is not strict. When the system is running,
the pressure must be in the pressure range that the membrane can bear. In addition, the film
materials and models cannot be selected for the water quality of the original water. On the other
hand, the application of reverse osmosis device to improve well water and tap water has many
advantages, but there is a serious contradiction between the purified water quality and the
guidelines established by health institutions. Because the reverse osmosis device removes
essential trace elements of human body at the same time.

Electrodialysis
Electrodialysis (ED) is an electrochemical charged-driven separation process where dissolved
ions are separated through ion-permeable membranes under the influence of an electrical
potential gradient. As compared with NF and RO processes, which transport pure water through
the membrane leaving the salts behind while in ED salt is gradually stripped from the solution
leaving a dilute solution behind containing particulate matter and neutral species not removed
by the ED process. The salt transferred through the membrane then forms the concentrate
There is also an increasing trend noted in the application of ED separation technology in the
wastewater recovery and desalination process that works economically and reliably on surface
water supplies, reuse water, and some specific industrial applications when designed and
operated properly. ED process is nowadays competitive with the conventional reverse osmosis
process. The reason for the increasing popularity of the ED process is that it doesn’t endanger
the health and nutritious properties of the final product e.g. by adding coagulants or
regenerating agents.
The principles of the electrodialysis process are summarized as follows;
• Anions move toward the anode
• Cations move toward the cathode
• Cation exchange membranes let cations through and block anions
• Anion exchange membranes let anions go through and block cations
• Electroneutrality

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Application of Electrodialysis
Over the last ten to fifteen years, numerous advances in membrane and system technology have
made EDR an especially attractive technology, both in terms of performance and cost-
effectiveness. EDR technology can be used from small installations that have only one stack to
the biggest one equipped with 576 stacks. Some of the applications of ED and EDR are as
follows;
• Brackish water desalination: A process by which the dissolved mineral salts present in
brackish water are removed.
• Desalination of Industrial Wastewater for Reuse
• Wastewater Treatment
• High TDS water treatment
• Demineralization (e.g. Boiler Feed water)
• Sectors where ions need to be removed from a process flow or must be concentrated
(e.g. chemicals industry)
• Demineralization of food products
• Recover valuable electrolytes or acids from rinsing baths in metal (surface)