Microfiltration and Reverse Osmosis Equipment

A Memcor microfiltration unit with automated air backflush was used for pretreatment. The membrane area of the hollow fibre module is 1 m.  

The Permutit Liberator 1 reverse osmosis unit contains two spiral wound modules of 0.96 m each with Filmtec BW30 membranes, a crosslinked aromatic polyamide. These were selected based on low adsorption and high rejection characteristics. 

MF pretreatment was chosen to eliminate particulate matter such as bacteria and inorganic particles, which were not part of the target material. MF would not normally remove natural organics, due to their small size, but NOM often adsorbs on inorganic particulate matter, which is removed and causes a loss of the target material. However, it was considered more important to remove inorganic particles and bacteria. 

The whole operation was carried out on-site in eight batches distributed over a period of one month. Operation parameters were monitored and samples of all process streams analysed, which provided initial insights about the surface water behaviour. 

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