A P P L I C AT I O N N O T E
Application of Membrane Technology
to Wastewater Treatment and Reuse
Merrilee Galloway, Antonia von Gottberg, Koch Membrane Systems, Wilmington, MA
Introduction
For decades, membrane filtration tech-
nology has been used to treat a variety
of industrial wastewater applications
including flexographic ink, metal fin-
ishing, chemical mechanical planariza-
tion (CMP) and alkaline cleaning.
However, wastewater treatment systems
in these industrial applications are typ-
ically small, generally not exceeding
100 gpm. More recently, spiral wound
and hollow fiber membranes have been
applied to large capacity applications
for wastewater treatment and reuse.
This paper will discuss the use of mem-
brane technologies within a wastewater
treatment or reuse facility for both mu-
nicipal and industrial wastewater. These
technologies include ultrafiltration
(UF), reverse osmosis (RO) and mem-
brane bioreactors (MBRs). The paper
will highlight several plants in opera-
tion using either one or several of these
membrane technologies, and discuss
innovations that will help to reduce the
cost of treated water using membranes
in the future.
Membranes for Wastewater
Treatment or Reuse
There are three main uses of mem-
branes for wastewater treatment or
reuse. The first is removal of suspended
solids. Either microfiltration (MF) or
ultrafiltration (UF) membranes are
used to remove suspended solids. Both
technologies are able to produce water
P R E S E N T E D at the AMTA 2006 Biennial Conference in Anaheim, California. Reprinted with the permission of the American
Membrane Technology Association (AMTA).
with turbidity of less than 0.1 NTU and
a 15-minute silt density index (SDI) of
less than 3. Hollow fiber MF and UF
membranes are proven technologies for
filtering secondary or tertiary treated
wastewater. Typical applications of MF
and UF include polishing for discharge,
reuse for irrigation, or pretreatment to
reverse osmosis.
Hollow fiber UF membranes are also
used today in MBRs. In this case, the
membranes are submerged in the acti-
vated sludge and used to separate bio-
logically-treated wastewater from the
sludge. The advantage of using the
membranes in this manner rather than
as a post-filtration step is that the sec-
ondary clarifier is eliminated, and the
concentration of mixed liquor can be
increased, so that the overall plant foot-
print is minimized.
The second use of membranes is for re-
moval of dissolved solids including
organics and salts. RO membranes
are typically used to remove dissolved
solids, and are able to produce water
with low total dissolved solids
(TDS). Typical applications of RO
include reuse for boiler makeup or
other industrial uses, and indirect
potable reuse.
The third use of membranes is to pro-
vide a barrier to bacteria, viruses and
endocrine disrupters that might poten-
tially pose a health threat if they were
not removed. Both MF and UF mem-
branes reject bacteria. UF membranes
additionally reject viruses, as do RO
membranes. There is considerable re-
search currently being undertaken in
relation to the ability of membranes
and membrane technology to remove
the various species that are classified
as endocrine disrupters. Typical appli-
cations where the membrane is used
as a barrier are direct and indirect
potable reuse.
The case studies below describe sev-
eral plants where membranes are used
in wastewater treatment and reuse
applications.
UF for Polishing of Tertiary
Effluent for Discharge
Mount Ebo is a small condominium
community near South East, Putnham
County, NY. Since the Mount Ebo
wastewater treatment plant (WTP) dis-
charges into the New York City water-
shed, the EPA and New York City
agreed to install a membrane system as
part of the New York City Watershed
Protection Program. The UF mem-
brane system has been supplied by
Koch Membrane Systems (KMS) and
will perform tertiary polishing of the
WTP discharge to deliver a 3 log mini-
mum removal of Giardia and a turbid-
ity of less than 0.5 NTU. The
300,000 GPD (gallons per day) system
is currently being commissioned. This
system is one of many under construc-
tion with the New York City Watershed
Protection Program.
UF and RO for Reuse
of Coal Mine Wastewater
Background
Tangshan Steel Works is one of the
largest steel works in China. It is located
in Hebei province in North China
which is about 200 km from Beijing.
The North and West regions of China
have a severe water shortage, and there-
fore the supply of fresh water for in-
dustrial applications is limited. With
the increasing price of water, the steel
works decided to use recycled waste-
water as a source for steel plate cooling
and boiler makeup. Coal mine waste-
water was available, but was high in
both suspended and dissolved solids.
A water treatment plant with a capac-
ity of 12,000 m3/day (500 m3/hr) was
supplied by Huadian Water Treatment
Technology and Engineering Co. Ltd. to
purify the coal mine waste. The plant
was installed in 2004. It was comprised
of conventional pretreatment, an inte-
grated membrane system for advanced
water recycling, and ion exchange for
polishing. This system was commis-
sioned in July 2004 and has been oper-
ating since then [1].
Water Treatment Process
The water treatment process supplied
by Huadian is shown in Figure 1. The
RO permeate is sent to the softened
water pit. From there, a portion of the
water is pumped to cool the steel plate
manufacturing, and another portion is
FIGURE 1
Flow Diagram of Water Treatment Process
Chemical
Clarifier with
slope pipe
Coal mine UF
water System
2
further treated with ion exchange for
boiler makeup.
Conventional Pretreatment
Raw water with high turbidity, hardness
and alkalinity from the coal mine well is
pumped to the plant to be treated with
conventional pretreatment including
coagulation, flocculation and sedimen-
tation. After the pretreatment, the total
suspended solids are about 10-50 mg/l
and the turbidity is approximately
15 NTU. The total dissolved solids are
in the range of 5-600 mg/l and the
hardness is 360 mg/l.
Ultrafiltration System
To meet the RO feed water require-
ments, UF was selected to reduce sus-
pended solids, turbidity and other
particulate matter. After pre-screening
through a 100-micron automatically
backwashing pre-filter, the clarified
water is sent to the UF system. The UF
system has three parallel trains with a
total capacity of 680 m3/hr. Each train
has 46 8-inch diameter TARGA®
V8072-35-PMC UF cartridges. The sys-
tem process is designed to be flexible to
optimize operating costs and perform-
ance as the incoming water quality
varies. The system normally operates in
a single pass mode where the water is
pumped through the membrane with a
small bleed stream going to waste to
minimize the power consumption.
However, each train is equipped with a
recirculation pump that only operates
when the suspended solids level is
higher than 30mg/l. When this occurs,
the system switches to recirculation
mode to maintain membrane perme-
ability. The UF effluent typically has a
RO Softened
System water pit
15-minute Silt Density Index (SDI15) of
less than 2.
Reverse Osmosis System
The UF permeate is collected in a basin,
and then pumped to the RO system to
remove hardness and reduce TDS. The
RO system has three parallel trains with
a total capacity of 500 m3/hr. Each train
is equipped with 108 FLUID SYS-
TEMS® TFC®-HR Magnum® 8832HR-
575 spiral wound RO elements, in an
18:9 array. 60-inch long Magnum ele-
ments were selected over 40-inch long
elements to minimize the number of
components and reduce the chance of
O-ring leakage in the system. 5 mg/l of
antiscalant is added to the RO feed to
prevent scaling.
Operating Data
The UF system was designed to operate
at 50 GFD (gallons per square foot per
day) with a typical feed pressure range
of 0.5 to 2.0 bar. The system back-
washes every 30 minutes, and the CIP
frequency is every four to eight weeks.
The RO system operates at 17 GFD.
After three months of operation the
feed pressure to the first stage was 9.5
bar and the feed pressure to the second
stage was 8.4 bar. Water quality data is
shown in Table 1.
During commissioning, the perform-
ance of the UF was quite good, and the
UF permeate water quality remains ex-
cellent, with an SDI less than 2. After six
months of operation, the specific flux
of the UF system has declined, as shown
in Figure 2. Regular backwashing, fast
flushing and chemical cleaning has
controlled this to some extent, but coal
particles can be seen in the end cap oc-
casionally after backwash. Several pos-
sible reasons for a decline in specific
flux have been considered. One possi-
bility is bio-growth due to organics in
the raw water. Additionally, flow to the
pretreatment clarifier is not always sta-
ble which could cause chemical over-
dosing leading to poor clarifier
performance. Another phenomenon
that should be noted is bubbles ob-
served in the clarifier, which can lead to
 TA B L E 1
Water Quality Data
Turbidity
No. Stage (NTU)
1 Raw Water 50 - 500
2 UF Feed 7 - 50,
Avg: 14
3 RO Feed ND
4 RO Product
poor floc formation and settling,
passing floc from the clarifier to the
UF feed.
The average values of Total Hardness
and Chloride during last seven months
of operation were 375 mg/l as CaCO3
and 25 mg/l respectively. Once stabi-
lized after commissioning, the flux
of the RO has remained relatively
stable. The normalized flux has showed
a slight decline from initial operation,
but the differential pressure remains
constant. The normalized salt passage
has remained quite stable throughout
the plant’s operating period and no
chemical cleaning has been required
to date.
While the UF specific flux has declined
slightly, the UF system has provided ex-
cellent feedwater to the RO, which has
enabled stable performance of the RO
system. The customer is very satisfied
with the plant. This case study demon-
strates a successful case of recycling coal
FIGURE 2
UF Specific Flux
Item
SS Conductivity SDI15
(ppm) (µS/cm)
250 450-800
10-50 450-800
450-800 <2
4.5-10.0
mine wastewater with an integrated
membrane system.
RO for Reuse
of Municipal Effluent
The City of Scottsdale, Arizona Water
Campus, is the site of a 14,000,000 GPD
water reuse facility where 8-inch diam-
eter spiral wound RO membranes have
been used since the beginning of oper-
ation in 1999 to treat microfiltered
treated municipal effluent for reuse.
From 2003 to 2005, this site has also
participated in successful field tests of
large diameter RO elements. The own-
ers are anticipating expanding the ca-
pacity of the plant within five years.
They are exploring the use of large ele-
ments as a way to increase the produc-
tion capacity within the existing
building. These field tests showed that
both the 8-inch elements in the existing
plant and the large diameter elements
perform similarly in terms of specific
flux and salt rejection [2].
MBR for Industrial
Wastewater Treatment
The Belgian malting company Sobelgra
is located in the Antwerp harbor. So-
belgra is currently expanding its pro-
duction from 100,000 to 250,000
tonnes per year. Therefore, the capacity
of the existing conventional wastewater
treatment plant had to be doubled. Due
to lack of space on the factory site, a
compact membrane bioreactor system
was selected. The 0.5 MGD system was
commissioned in 2004, and is the
largest industrial membrane bioreactor
in Belgium. The system uses a unique
submerged hollow fiber membrane
technology recently introduced to the
market. This technology minimizes the
clogging and sludging issues that are
common with some existing MBR
plants, and optimizes energy usage.
The compactness of membrane biore-
actors was the main reason Solbelgra
selected this innovative technology.
The capacity of the existing wastewater
treatment plant could be enlarged with-
out increasing floorspace, since the
higher concentration of the sludge in-
creases the performance of the biologi-
cal step. Additionally, clarification tanks
become unnecessary, since the separa-
tion of sludge and clean water is done
by the membranes. The existing infra-
structure could be used for the expan-
sion of the wastewater treatment plant;
and the construction of new tankage
was not required. Instead, separation
walls were inserted into the existing
bioreactor tank. One half serves now as
the membrane tank for the submerged
modules. The former sedimentation
tank of the clarifier is now part of the
bioreactor.
The Wastewater Treatment Plant
The MBR plant commenced operation
in November 2004. During the com-
missioning phase from November 2004
to January 2005, only one third of the
biological plant was in operation. Per-
meability was high at 530 l/m2h bar
in November and rose to 610 in
January, as the biological process has
been started to be optimized. The efflu-
3
ent COD values have been at or below
the plant’s requirements. Table 1
shows some operational parameters
over the course of 13 months of suc-
cessful operation.
References
1. McArdle, J., R. Pang, A. von Got-
tberg, S. Li, W. Tian, (2005), “Recy-
cling of Coal Mine Waste with
Integrated Membrane System”,
Proceedings, IDA World Congress,
Corporate Headquarters
Koch Membrane Systems, Inc.
850 Main Street
Wilmington, Massachusetts 01887-3388

TA B L E 1 2
Singapore. USA
Main: 1-978-694-7000
Sobelgra Operating Data
2. von Gottberg, A., R. Lesan (2005), Toll Free: 1-888-677-5624
Influent Load Effluent
“Meeting the Challenge – Construc- Fax: 1-978-657-5208
Parameter [mg/l] [kg/day] [mg/l]
tion, Operation and Maintenance of
COD 1880-2100 4000 100-200 Large Scale RO Elements”, Proceed- Manufacturing Facilities
BOD 700-930 2000 2-5 Wilmington, Massachusetts
ings, AWWA Membrane Technology
San Diego, California
Suspended Conference.
solids 330-460 800 0 Aachen, Germany

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Koch Chemical Technology Group, Ltd.
Koch Membrane Systems Division
Conclusions The Granary, Telegraph Street
Membrane technology is well-estab- Stafford ST17 4AT
lished for wastewater treatment and United Kingdom
reuse. A variety of membrane pore Tel: +44-178-527-2500
sizes and configurations are used, in- Fax: +44-178-522-3149
cluding MF, UF and RO. Hollow fiber
Aachen, Germany
technology is generally preferred for UF
Lyon, France
and MBR applications, with spiral-
Madrid, Spain
wound technology used for RO. The
Milan, Italy
case studies above highlight the suc-
Stafford, United Kingdom
cessful use of membranes to meet the
Wijnegem, Belgium
specific project goals.
Asia/Pacific
Beijing, China
Mumbai, India
Melbourne, VIC Australia
Shanghai, China
Singapore

Latin America
Sao Paulo, Brazil

Middle East
Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain

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Application Note 005

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