14 ALGAL BLOOMS AND MEMBRANE BASED DESALINATION TECHNOLOGY

1.2 Membrane filtration

In addition to RO, other types of pressure-driven membranes have been applied for
drinking and industrial water production. Separation processes using polymeric
membranes can cover a wide size spectrum of contaminants, from suspended solids
to dissolve organic compounds to inorganic ions (Figure 1-3). The physical and
operational characteristics of different categories of membrane filtration processes are
presented in Table 1-1.

Figure 1-3: Contaminants which can be removed by membrane filtration processes. Adopted from Cath
(2010) via The National Academies Press.

Table 1-1: Characteristics of different membrane filtration processes.

Process and Pore size MWCO* Pressure Materials typically retained
abbreviations (nm) (kDa) (bar)
Microfiltration, MF 50-5000 > 500 0.1-2 particles + large colloids + large bacteria
as above + small colloids + small bacteria
Ultrafiltration, UF 5-50 2 - 500 1-5
+ viruses + organic macromolecules
Nanofiltration, NF <1 0.2 - 2 5-20 as above + multi-valent ions
Reverse osmosis, RO << 1 < 0.2 10-100 as above + mono-valent ions
* Molecular weight cut-off = molecular weight of solutes with similar weight of which 90% were rejected by the membrane.

Low pressure-driven membranes such as microfiltration (MF) and ultrafiltration (UF)

membranes are usually used in treating waters with high turbidity or high particulate
matter loading. MF/UF can remove particulate (e.g., bacteria, algae) and some
colloidal materials (e.g., biopolymers). Physical sieving is the main rejection
mechanism, where water permeates through the membrane due to the applied driving
pressure. Over time, the deposits on the membrane can serve as a self-rejecting layer
and retain even smaller particles than the pore size of the membrane. UF have finer
pores than MF, hence, it is expected to have higher contaminant rejection efficiency as
well as higher operating pressure than MF. UF has been shown to be more effective
than MF in removing bacteria, viruses and other pathogenic microorganisms in the
water (Jacangelo et al., 1995). Both MF and UF are widely applied in surface and