The Secret Weapons of Industrial Water Treatment: A Full Comparison of RO and Ultrafiltration Technologies
Introduction to Reverse Osmosis (RO)
Reverse osmosis (RO) is a membrane separation technology that utilizes pressure differentials to drive the process. When pressure is applied to one side of the RO membrane, water naturally passes through the semi-permeable membrane against the direction of natural osmosis, so impurities are left on the other side of the membrane.
The core component within the system, the semi-permeable membrane, has an extremely small pore size (approximately 0.0001μm), allowing only water molecules to pass through, while most other solutes and impurities are blocked. A high-pressure pump drive applies the pressure. As a result, the filtration accuracy and removal capacity is the greatest in the entire water filtration system.
Application Areas
- Seawater desalination
Industrial water treatment (boiler make-up water, electronic industry, chemical industry, pharmaceutical, food, textile, boiler make-up water, metallurgy, paper making, building materials, etc.) - Drinking water purification
- Wastewater treatment and reuse
- Extraction of pure water and ultrapure water
RO System Features VS Others Water Treatment Technology
1. RO system has ultra-high precision filtration (0.0001 micron)
- It is the only membrane separation technology that can remove dissolved salts (TDS), heavy metal ions, and radioactive substances.
- Compared with ultrafiltration (UF), microfiltration (MF), and nanofiltration (NF), the filtration precision is shown below.
2. The desalination rate of RO membrane is up to 99.4% or more
- This makes it capable of completely removing salt from seawater and brackish water, and can be used in areas where high desalination is required.
3. The RO system requires only pressure drive, which is more energy efficient.
4. RO system reduces water wastage due to automatic separation of wastewater and pure water allowing wastewater to be reused, e.g. recycled for cooling towers, irrigation, etc.
5. RO system extracts pure water and ultra pure water, which will be directly used by electronics, pharmaceutical and semiconductor industries.
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Introduction of Ultrafiltration
Ultrafiltration also uses a highly efficient membrane separation method to purify and separate solutions. Ultrafiltration membrane filtration technology also relies on pressure differentials as the driving force to achieve effective separation of different sized particles in a fluid.
It works by separating particles based on their molecular weight size. The pore size is between 0.01-0.1 micron, which belongs to the category of microporous filtration membrane.
Application Areas
- Drinking water treatment
- Industrial water treatment to effectively remove impurities in water, e.g. textile, printing and dyeing, paper making, etc.
- Bacteria and turbidity removal in the food and beverage industry.
- Removal of pyrogens and concentration of enzymes in the pharmaceutical industry.
- Concentration and purification of proteins, enzymes, DNA, monoclonal antibodies and other biomolecules in the laboratory.
Features of Ultrafiltration Compared to Other Water Treatment
1. Less impact on water quality
- Because only removes particles and macromolecular pollutants, does not change the chemical properties of water, better taste.
2. Low energy consumption and operation cost
- Working pressure is only 0.1-0.5 MPa, lower than RO, etc., operating energy consumption is small, energy saving and environmental protection.
3. High flux, suitable for large flow water treatment
- The flow rate is larger than other water treatment systems, up to several thousand to several hundred thousand tons per hour. Suitable for industrial pretreatment, large-scale drinking water treatment and food processing.
4. Suitable for a variety of water sources, not easy due to high turbidity water quality and clogging membrane, low maintenance costs.
5. Ultra-filtration retains beneficial minerals, suitable for mineral water, drinking water, food production water.
6. Wastewater reuse. Recycling rate up to 80% or more.