How ZeeWeed 1500 Membrane Filtration Works
Organics, silt, and other particulate material in water give it a cloudy, dark appearance. This makes the water unsafe for drinking and ineffective for industrial processes. ZW1500 ultrafiltration (UF) membranes remove these particles, bacteria and viruses for an exceptional clean water. This is possible because our ZW1500 UF membrane has a 0.02-micron pore structure that rejects these small particles and micro-organisms.
ZW1500 is perfect for drinking water because it removes harmful bacteria and viruses while preserving essential salts and ions in the water. For industrial applications, removing organic, colloidal and particulate matter prepares the water for further treatment by Nanofltration (NF) and/or Reverse Osmosis (RO) treatment. UF pre-treatment reduces fouling on downstream process equipment and additional filtration unit operations. This makes for a more efficient water treatment train.
ZW1500 is a pressurized, outside-in flow, UF membrane module. ZW1500 does not require a pressure vessel – it is a fully self-contained, modular unit. Although ZW1500 can handle feed pressures up to 55 psi, high pressures are rarely required to achieve high output flow rates of clean, filtered water.
ZW1500 membranes work by feeding a pressurized source water to the bottom of the module. Once inside the module, the source water surrounds the thousands of membrane fibres contained within. The pressure causes water to travel (permeate) across the outside skin of the membrane and flow to the inside of the hollow fibre, leaving particulate, organics and bacteria behind. Clean water then travels up, through the membrane fibres and exits from the top of the module.
Periodically, water filtration is stopped for cleaning. To clean ZW1500, flow of clean water is reversed. Clean water is pressurized on the inside of the membrane fibres and flows to the outside. This pushes off all the rejected material that has accumulated on the outside surface of the membrane and flushes it to waste. Simultaneous, air is applied to the bottom of the module to scour the membrane surface and aid in the cleaning process. This sequence of events is a called a backwash.
These cycles of filtration and backwash can be easily automated to keep operation simple and membranes operating in top form.
