PWTSA Ultrafiltration Process

Ultrafiltration (UF) using membrane filtration

The Ultrafiltration process is a separation process using membrane filtration, where membrane modules of the filters are available in plate-and-frame, spiral-wound, and tubular configurations with pore sizes in the range of 0.1 to 0.001 micron. Typically, the ultrafiltration process will remove high molecular-weight substances, colloidal materials, and organic and inorganic molecules.

PWTSA Ultrafiltration (UF) is a membrane filtration process like Reverse Osmosis, using hydrostatic pressure to force water through a semi-permeable membrane. The pore size of the ultrafiltration membrane is usually 103 – 106 Daltons. Ultrafiltration (UF) is a pressure-driven barrier to suspended solids, bacteria, viruses, endotoxins and other pathogens to produce water with very high purity and low silt density.

Low molecular-weight organics and dissolved solids (chemicals) such as calcium, magnesium, sodium, chloride, and sulphates will not be removed.
Ultrafiltration, like reverse osmosis, operates as a cross-flow separation process. The raw water feed flows tangentially along the membrane of the filter, passing through the internal porus structure. The feed water that has passed through the membrane is referred to as permeate.

PWTSA Ultrafiltration (UF) is a variety of membrane filtration in which hydrostatic pressure forces a liquid against a semi permeable membrane. Suspended solids and solutes of high molecular weight are retained, while water and low molecular weight solutes pass through the membrane. Ultrafiltration is not fundamentally different from reverse osmosis, microfiltration or nanofiltration, except in terms of the size of the molecules it retains.