Basics of Ultrafiltration: An Industrial Water Filter System Guide

Ultrafiltration technology plays an important role in industrial water treatment projects. Compared to traditional filter media filtration, this water treatment technology uses ultrafiltration membranes for higher filtration accuracy, effectively removing not just bacteria, viruses, and macromolecular organic matter, but also colloids and other particulates. Aside from being integral to wastewater reuse and municipal drinking water treatments, ultrafiltration technology is also pivotal for industries ranging from power, petrochemical, metallurgy, and electronics, to food and beverage, pharmaceutical, and more. 

What is Ultrafiltration

Ultrafiltration (UF) is a water purification process in which raw water, under a driving pressure, is forced through a semipermeable membrane. Suspended solids and macromolecular impurities remain on the retentate side of the membrane, while water and low molecular weight solutes are filtered through the membrane to the permeate side. Ultrafiltration can intercept nearly all suspended solids, macromolecules, and bacteria in water, and can remove BOD and COD by 20 - 60%. This makes ultrafiltration systems a popular choice in industrial filtration as they produce stable water quality no matter what the water source is. 

Ultrafiltration VS Other Filtration Techniques

Aside from its separation characteristics, here is how Ultrafiltration differs from other filtration techniques:

1. The sieve’s aperture size is smaller, retaining almost all bacteria, heat sources, viruses, colloidal particles, proteins, and macromolecular organic matter.

2. Effective separation does not just depend on the pore size of the membrane and the size, shape and rigidity of solute particles. It also heavily relies on the solution’s chemical properties (ph, electrical) and composition (presence of other particles), as well as the surface structure of the membrane’s dense layer including its electrical and chemical properties (hydrophobic and hydrophilic, etc.).

3. The whole filtration process is carried out dynamically. There is no filter cake formation as only a few materials can’t pass through the membrane surface. The filtration rate gradually stabilizes, with filtration efficacy highly dependent on the raw feed water.

Ultrafiltration Operation Methods

When looking for ultrafiltration membrane systems for your industrial water system facility, be sure you get the right unit following the operation method your application requires. Ultrafiltration membrane systems are designed to follow different filtration processes. Here are two of the most popular operation methods you can consider:

1. Dead-End Filtration

This model, also known as Full-Filtration, is the most basic form and is similar to traditional filtration. It involves raw water entering the ultrafiltration membrane via an applied pressure and the filtered matter accumulating on the membrane’s surface. Water flows through the membrane, returning 100% permeate.

As macromolecular particles and colloidal impurities are retained on the surface of the filter it eventually becomes clogged, resulting in a decrease in flux and filtration capacity. For this reason, the membrane surface must undergo regular backwash or cleaning to maintain the membrane’s performance.

2. Cross-flow Filtration

Cross-flow filtration, also called tangential flow filtration, is an excellent method to filter liquids with higher concentrations of filterable particulates. It involves supplying constant high-velocity flow along the membrane surface to prevent accumulation of suspended solids and to increase membrane flux. Employing differences in pressure across the elements, water is then driven through the membrane to return permeate or treated water, while particles retained by the membrane become part of the concentrate that continuously pass along the membrane in a cyclic pattern.

The process is known as “cross-flow” because the feed flow and the filtration flow direction follow a 90° angle. Under the same water production rate, the energy consumption of this filtration model is higher than dead-end filtration.

Typical UF Applications

Ultrafiltration is widely used in different industries and applications, some of these include:

• Electronic Industry

Cleaning semi-finished and finished electronics including semiconductor devices, integrated circuits, picture tubes, electronic testing equipment, computer motherboards, and others require plenty of pure water and high-purity water of various levels.

• Food and Beverage Industry

Natural mineral water can be directly filtered by ultrafiltration, pure water or drinking water is needed for various cooking processes such as blending of food ingredients 

• Pharmaceutical Industry

UF is fundamental to water used as raw material in pharmaceutical production, for refining, oral medicines, and injection medicines.  

• Power / Petrochemical / Metallurgy Industry

For boiler water, process water for various industrial operations, circulating cooling water, reuse of reclaimed water, etc. 

• Municipal Water

Aside from helping solve scarcity of freshwater resources, ultrafiltration is essential to municipal water treatments that involve desalination of seawater, desalination of water as an important step in any water supply system, filtering domestic water to improve drinking water quality, and more.

Why Choose Membrane Solutions UF Modules

Secure optimal operation of your industrial water system facility by choosing Membrane Solutions UF modules built to offer trusted performance and value for your money. With years of experience serving ultrafiltration components to meet various industry needs, Membrane Solutions highlights the following: 

• High Quality Guarantee

The large-scale and standardized production process of Membrane Solutions (MS) covers all sides from  procurement control, incoming inspection, production process control and inspection, to finished product quality assurance, product protection control, and more. This whole process combined with high-end membrane technology from the United States, ensures high quality, stable, and maximum performance of each MS ultrafiltration membrane that leaves the factory. It goes the same with the production process followed for hollow fiber ultrafiltration products, with MS strictly adhering to ISO9001:2000 standards and requirements.

MS not only provides comprehensive quality assurance but also excellent customer service. Let our team of experts assist you in completing projects, whether for testing stock solutions, on-site debugging, or building systems for your facility, with the best solutions tailored to your requirements.

• Reliable Technology R&D and Services

Membrane Solutions has set up an ultrafiltration membrane research and development center in Shanghai with world-class membrane separation experts, top water treatment engineers, and a complete range of testing equipment to provide top-notch support for product development and services.  

Our technical center houses exhaustive ultrafiltration testing equipment for water quality analysis including hydrophilic testing contact analyzer, atomic absorption spectrometer, liquid chromatography system, and TOC analyzer to name a few. Backed with our full-scale set up, trust us to only offer reasonable water solutions, accurate fault diagnosis, and convenient technical support for any equipment issues our customers might encounter. 

If you are interested in Membrane Solutions Ultrafiltration components for your plant and need more details, feel free to visit our website: https://www.membrane-solutions.com/ultrafiltration_module.htm. You can also get in touch with us here: https://www.membrane-solutions.com/contact_us.htm