Filtratio

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 What is
Filtration?
● a physical or chemical separation process that separates solid matter and fluid from a
mixture using a filter medium that has a complex structure through which only the fluid
can pass
● Is the removal of flocculated particles of smaller size (those that cannot be removed by
settling)
● Solid particles that cannot pass through the filter medium are described
as oversize and the fluid that passes through is called the filtrate.
● Oversize particles may form a filter cake on top of the filter and may also block the filter
lattice, preventing the fluid phase from crossing the filter, known as blinding.
● The size of the largest particles that can successfully pass through a filter is called the
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 Diagram of simple filtration: oversize particles in the feed cannot pass through the lattice
structure of the filter, while fluid and small particles pass through, becoming filtrate.
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 What happens to water
during filtration?
The filtration system consists of filters with varying sizes of pores,
and is often made up of sand, gravel and charcoal. The diagram below
shows a homemade filter that is made up of particles of various sizes. The
diameter of a grain of fine sand is approximately 0.1 millimetre, so only
particles with diameters less than 0.1 millimetre would pass through the fine
sand layer. This filter would not be able to produce safe drinking water,
because many contaminants are much smaller than 0.1 millimetre (such as
viruses, which can be as small as 0.000001 millimetre in diameter!).
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 What is removed
during Filtration?

The particles that are removed from the water

during filtration depend upon the size of filters that are
used. Slow sand filtration removes bacteria, protozoa and
viruses, and produces essentially clean water, though it is
still advisable to use a disinfectant as a precautionary
measure.
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 What is removed
during Filtration?
Rapid sand filtration removes suspended particles, which may have
bacteria attached, but in general does not remove bacteria, protozoa, or viruses.
In water treatment plants, filtration removes a large number of contaminants,
but still requires disinfection to produce drinking water that is safe. Though rapid
sand filtration cannot effectively remove bacteria and viruses, it is an important
step in the water treatment process. Like coagulation, filtration can remove the
suspended and dissolved matter, so that disinfection is more successful with a
reduced amount of chlorine
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 The size of materials that can be removed during filtration depends upon the size of the pores of the filter. The chart
below summarizes the various separation processes relative to common materials that would be filtered out through each process.
Particle filtration refers to conventional media filtration, while the other types are membrane filtrations.

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 The chart below summarizes the types of particles that are removed from the water with each type of membrane
filter. The green arrow indicates that the particle is small enough to pass through the filter, whereas the deflected orange arrow
indicates that the filter blocks the particle from passing through the filter.

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 Slow
Sand
Filtration
Slow sand filtration is a biological process,
because it uses bacteria to treat the water

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 Slow sand filtration systems have been
used for many years; the first systems
operated in London in the 19th century.
However, slow sand filtration systems
require large areas of land to operate, because
the flow rate of the water is between 0.1 and
0.3 meter per hour. Due to the land area that is
required and the down-time for cleaning, rapid
sand filters, which were developed in the early
20th century, are much more prevalent today.
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 The bacteria establish a community on the
top layer of sand and clean the water as it
passes through, by digesting the
contaminants in the water. The layer of
microbes is called a schumtzdecke (or
biofilm), and requires cleaning every couple
of months, when it gets too thick and the
flow rate declines. After the schumtzdecke
is removed, the bacteria must be allowed
several days to reestablish a community
before filtering can resume.

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 Rapid
Sand
Filtratio
Rapid sand filtration is a physical process

n
that removes suspended solids from
the
water.
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 Rapid sand filtration is much more
common than flow sand filtration,
because rapid sand filters have fairly
high flow rates and require relatively
little space to operate. In fact, during
rapid sand filtration, the water flows
at a rate up to 20 metres per hour.
The filters are generally cleaned twice
per day with backwashing filters and
are put back into operation
immediately.

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 Membrane Filters
Historically cloth has been used to filter water. In micro straining
the water is filtered through fabric made from finely woven wire. In both
these cases the cloth or fabric is a kind of membrane, albeit a coarse one.
Modern technology allows manufacture of membranes from synthetic
materials, to be less than about 1mm thick and be semi-permeable.
Being semi-permeable means that the membrane is selective in what
submicron- size particles can and cannot pass through it that is in the feed
stream.
During operation, permeable components in the water pass through
the membrane with the water whilst impermeable submicron-size
components are retained on the feed side. Consequently, the product
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stream is rich in impermeable components. Flow of water through such a
ANI semi-permeable membrane is achieved by pressure, usually produced by
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 Types of Membrane
Filtration

Ultrafiltration

Nano filtration

Reverse Osmosis
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 What is
Ultrafiltration?
● An ultrafiltration filter has a pore size around 0.01 micron. A microfiltration
filter has a pore size around 0.1 micron, so when water undergoes
microfiltration, many microorganisms are removed, but viruses remain in
the water. Ultrafiltration would remove these larger particles, and may
remove some viruses. Neither microfiltration nor ultrafiltration can remove
dissolved substances unless they are first adsorbed (with activated
carbon) or coagulated (with alum or iron salts).

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 What is Nano
Filtration?
A Nano filtration filter has a pore size
around 0.001 micron. Nano filtration
removes most organic molecules, nearly
all viruses, most of the natural organic
matter and a range of salts. Nano filtration
removes divalent ions, which make water
hard, so Nano filtration is often used to
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soften hard water.
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 What is Reverse
Osmosis? Reverse osmosis filters have a pore size around 0.0001 micron. After
water passes through a reverse osmosis filter, it is essentially pure water. In
addition to removing all organic molecules and viruses, reverse osmosis also
removes most minerals that are present in the water. Reverse osmosis removes
monovalent ions, which means that it desalinates the water. To understand how
reverse osmosis works, it is helpful to understand osmosis.

Osmosis occurs when a semi-permeable membrane separates two salt

solutions of different concentrations. The water will migrate from the weaker
solution to the stronger solution, until the two solutions are of the same
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concentration, because the semi-permeable membrane allows the water to pass
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through, but not the salt.
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 In the diagram, (A) and (B)
illustrate the process of osmosis.
In reverse osmosis, the two
solutions are still separated by a semi-
permeable membrane, but pressure is
applied to reverse the natural flow of the
water. This forces the water to move from
the more concentrated solution to the
weaker. Thus, the contaminants end up on
one side of the semi-permeable membrane
and the pure water is on the other side. In
the diagram below, reverse osmosis is
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represented in (C).
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 What do these three processes
remove?
 Ultrafiltration removes bacteria, protozoa and some viruses from the water.
 Nano filtration removes these microbes, as well as most natural organic matter
and some natural minerals, especially divalent ions which cause hard water. Nano
filtration, however, does not remove dissolved compounds.
 Reverse osmosis removes turbidity, including microbes and virtually all dissolved
substances. However, while reverse osmosis removes many harmful minerals, such
as salt and lead, it also removes some healthy minerals, such as calcium and
magnesium. This is why water that is treated by reverse osmosis benefits by going
through a magnesium and calcium mineral bed. This adds calcium and magnesium
to the water, while also increasing the pH and decreasing the corrosive potential of
the water. Corrosive water may leach lead and copper from distribution systems
and household water pipes.
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 Advantages of using Ultrafiltration, NanoFiltration,
or Reverse Osmosis to treat water

All three of these membrane filtration processes are effective methods

of treating water that cannot be treated using conventional treatment methods.
Reverse osmosis, in particular, has been responsible for ending several nearly
decade long Boil Water Advisories. For example, in 2003, a reverse osmosis
system, together with a biological treatment process, was set up to successfully
treat drinking water for the Yellow Quill First Nation, which had been on a Boil
Water Advisory since 1995. The water in the First Nations community, which is
located in Saskatchewan, contained high levels of organic matter, iron,
manganese, ammonium and arsenic, to name a few.

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 Disadvantages of using Ultrafiltration,
NanoFiltration, or Reverse Osmosis to treat water
Compared with the benefits of using membrane filtration to treat water,
there are very few disadvantages. If conventional water treatment processes can
effectively treat the water, then constructing a reverse osmosis water treatment
facility would be an unnecessary cost. But for the First Nations communities that have
been on Boil Water Advisories for many years, a reverse osmosis treatment system
can be a valuable investment that can provide safe drinking water for the residents.
Reverse osmosis removes a number of healthy minerals from water, in
addition to the harmful minerals and particles. The removal of these minerals,
including calcium and magnesium, can actually make water unhealthy, especially for
people with inadequate diets and people who live in hot climates, as water can
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provide these necessary minerals. The addition of calcium and magnesium, as
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described above, can resolve these concerns.
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 Thank
you!
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