Water and Wastewater Treatment by Membraflow
Clean Water Solutions for Industry and Municipal Authorities
- Energy-efficient
- Sustainably clean
- Scalable and flexible
- Reliable filtration performance
The Challenge in Water and Wastewater Treatment
Water treatment is a core component of efficient and reliable processes in industry and municipal infrastructure. Whether for the supply of clean drinking water, as process water in manufacturing, or in wastewater treatment, dependable solutions that combine efficiency with sustainability are essential. However, the demands on water and wastewater treatment systems are steadily increasing. Stricter regulatory requirements, fluctuating water quality and high pollutant loads present significant challenges for companies and plant operators.
Conventional treatment methods often reach their limits in these conditions. High chemical and energy consumption, short filter service lives, and unstable operation when handling heavily contaminated water lead to rising costs and additional operational complexity. The result is increased operating expenses, intensive maintenance requirements, and a growing burden on the environment and natural resources.
The solution: ceramic membrane filtration
Advantages Compared to Conventional Filtration Technologies
- Robust & durable: Ceramic materials (Al₂O₃, ZrO₂, SiC) are resistant to temperature, chemicals and mechanical stress.
- Efficient: Significantly less energy and chemicals used.
- Reliable: Consistently high filtration performance even with high solids loads.
- Self-cleaning: Crossflow operation reduces deposits and blockages
- Sustainable: Supports water reuse and resource conservation.
Applications in Industry and Municipalities
- Drinking water treatment
- Wastewater post-treatment
- Load reduction of biological treatment stages
- Treatment of oilfield produced water
- Oil/water separation on offshore oil and gas platforms
- Process water treatment in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries
- Wash water recycling in industrial laundries
- CIP processes (recovery of alkaline cleaning solutions)
- Concentration of residues in biogas plants
- Thin stillage filtration in ethanol production
- Bilge water treatment in maritime applications
- Vehicle wash water recycling
- Clarification and concentration of dyes in the textile industry
membrane filter technology
Application Areas
Material
The ceramic membranes are manufactured from high-strength materials such as aluminium oxide, zirconium oxide or silicon carbide. Their multilayer structure combines a robust support layer with a finely porous surface, enabling precise separation. This design provides the modules with exceptional mechanical stability and a long service life, even under extreme operating conditions.
Crossflow Operation
A key feature of the system is crossflow operation. Instead of flowing perpendicularly through the membrane, the water moves parallel to the membrane surface. This generates high shear forces that minimise fouling and ensure consistent filtration performance. At the same time, the smooth membrane surface allows for particularly efficient and straightforward cleaning.
Module Design
The module designs, commonly configured as tubular or flat-sheet systems, are engineered to ensure stable filtration even when treating highly contaminated wastewater. Thanks to their high resistance to temperature and chemicals, aggressive cleaning procedures can be applied without damaging the membrane structure.
Conclusion
This combination of a purely physical separation process, robust ceramic materials and optimised flow dynamics delivers consistently high filtration quality. Ceramic membrane filtration therefore provides a reliable foundation for the treatment of process water and wastewater in both municipal and industrial applications, even when water quality and pollutant loads fluctuate significantly.
Patented Filtration Technology for Banknote Printing
In addition to the classic applications of ceramic membrane filtration, Membraflow, together with OeBS, Österreichische Banknoten- und Sicherheitsdruck GmbH, has developed the patented HIREC® process developed. This technology is specially tailored to banknote printing and enables the almost complete recovery of solvents and cleaning solutions containing printing ink. With a recovery rate of up to 99 %, HIREC® not only helps to increase efficiency, but also to significantly reduce waste and environmental impact. An example of how membrane technology offers sustainable solutions even in highly specialized processes.
Learn More in Our Case Studies
FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions
A variety of treatment methods are used in water treatment, depending on water quality and the intended application. These include mechanical processes (such as sedimentation, filtration and membrane technology), chemical processes (including precipitation, flocculation, neutralisation, and disinfection using chlorine or ozone), as well as physical processes (UV irradiation, distillation, and adsorption using activated carbon). In many applications, a combination of these methods is employed.
Several filtration technologies are used in drinking water treatment, including microfiltration (MF), ultrafiltration (UF), nanofiltration (NF), and reverse osmosis (RO). Microfiltration removes larger particles and microorganisms, while ultrafiltration also retains finer suspended solids and viruses. Nanofiltration and reverse osmosis provide even finer separation and are used to remove dissolved salts, minerals, and contaminants.
Commercial water treatment refers to processes used to treat and purify water in commercial and smaller industrial operations, for example in laundries, food production facilities, or cooling circuits. The goal is to treat water efficiently and enable reuse in order to reduce operating costs and comply with environmental regulations.
Water plays a vital role in almost all industrial sectors, for example as process water, cooling water, a cleaning medium, or a solvent. It is used in industries such as chemical manufacturing, food production, metal processing, and power generation. As water often becomes heavily contaminated during production processes, reliable treatment is essential to enable reuse or safe discharge.
In wastewater treatment, contaminated water is cleaned in several stages. The process typically begins with mechanical pre-treatment, where coarse particles are removed. This is often followed by biological treatment, in which microorganisms break down organic substances, and chemical-physical stages to remove additional contaminants. Modern technologies such as membrane filtration significantly enhance treatment performance and allow even the finest impurities to be removed.
Wastewater treatment can be mechanical (screening, sedimentation), biological (activated sludge, trickling filters, membrane bioreactors), or chemical-physical (precipitation, neutralisation, activated carbon, membrane technology). In practice, multiple treatment methods are often combined to achieve high water quality.
Industrial wastewater is generated during production processes, for example through cooling, cleaning, or chemical reactions. It may contain organic and inorganic substances, oils, fats, chemicals, or heavy metals and therefore must be professionally treated before discharge into the sewer system or prior to reuse.
Yes. Ceramic membrane filtration is particularly well suited for wastewater treatment. It operates using a purely physical separation principle, reliably removing particles, microorganisms, oil droplets and even the finest contaminants to produce a clear filtrate. Due to its robustness and long service life, it is ideal for industrial wastewater with fluctuating quality or high pollutant loads.
Wastewater treatment plants are technical systems that treat wastewater from households, commercial operations, or industry so that it can either be reused or safely returned to the environment. Depending on the application, they consist of mechanical, biological, and chemical-physical treatment stages. Modern systems increasingly integrate membrane technology to achieve particularly high treatment performance.
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