Industrial Wastewater UF and RO Treatment For Water Reclamation and Reuse A Survey of Commercial Membrane System Installations

The use of Ultrafiltration and Reverse Osmosis membrane to continuously treat large volumes of heavy mixed industrial wastewaters with the intent of separating heavy metals, oils, organics, BOD, COD, and other pollutants, and produce an effluent of quality sufficient for recovery and reuse within the plant has become a relatively common membrane application. The first of these combination membrane systems were commissioned in the 1970's. Since then many more UF/RO systems have been employed in a variety of industries and applications.This paper is a survey of the performance of four commercial UF and RO systems operating on wastewaters in the metalworking, laundry, and pulp and paper industries. It will show results on the application of UF to treat waste and produce permeate that is of value because it contains components that are beneficial when recovered and recycled back into the process. Discussed are the long term performances and costs to operate combined UF and RO systems, where permeate from RO systems not only easily meets tightening discharge regulations, it also is of such high quality it can be used in place of city water within the facility.Process design, economics, permeate quality analysis, membrane system operation and recommendations on implementing UF/RO technology to recover water are presented in detail.