Recent Development of Membrane Processes for Water and Waste Water Treatment

Membranes are presently used at industrial scale for water and waste water treatment, but still for limited production. More knowledge of hydrodynamic phenomena has recently resulted in significant technical improvements (backflush, unsteady flow). However an experimental study performed at lab scale in a rotating membrane device has shown the complexity of the relationship between operating conditions, rejection and filtrate flux. The need for bettering the quality of the water (low turbidity) and waster water (disinfection) may be in favour of the development of membrane processes if efficient models allowing simultaneous optimization of quality and productivity are made available (as was done years ago for deep bed filtration).