Water and wastewater treatment from Membraflow
Clean water for industry & municipalities.
- Energy efficient
- Sustainably clean
- Scalable flexible
- Reliable filtering
The challenge in wastewater & water treatment
Water treatment is a central component for functioning processes in Industry and municipalities. Whether as clean drinking water, as process water in production or in the treatment of waste water. Reliable solutions are required everywhere that Efficiency and sustainability with each other. However, the requirements are constantly increasing: stricter legal requirements, fluctuating water qualities and high loads pose major challenges for companies and plant operators.
This is precisely where conventional processes often reach their limits. High chemical and energy consumption, short filter service lives or unsafe operation with heavily contaminated water lead to rising costs and additional work. The result: rising operating costs, high maintenance costs and a burden on the environment and resources.
The solution: ceramic membrane filters
Advantages over other methods:
- 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.
Areas of application in industry & municipalities
- Drinking water treatment
- Post-treatment of wastewater
- Relief of biological stages
- Treatment of oilfield wastewater
- Oil/water separation on oil & gas platforms
- Process water treatment in chemicals & pharmaceuticals
- Washing water recycling in laundries
- CIP processes (recovery of alkaline solutions)
- Concentration of residues in biogas plants
- Stillage filtration in ethanol production
- Bilge water treatment in shipping
- Recycling vehicle wash water
- Clarification and concentration of dyes in the textile industry
Areas of application
Functionality
Material
The ceramic membranes are made of highly stable materials such as aluminum oxide, zirconium oxide or silicon carbide. Their multi-layered structure combines a robust carrier layer with a fine-pored surface that enables precise deposition. This structure not only gives the modules a high mechanical load capacity, but also a long service life even under extreme conditions.
Crossflow
A key feature is crossflow operation: instead of flowing vertically through the membrane, the water moves parallel along its surface. This creates high shear forces that minimize deposits and ensure constant filtration performance. At the same time, the smooth membrane structure makes cleaning particularly easy and efficient.
Designs
The design of the modules, often in the form of pipes or plates, is designed to ensure stable filtration even with heavily contaminated wastewater. Thanks to their high temperature and chemical resistance, aggressive cleaning processes can also be used without damaging the membrane structure.
Conclusion
This combination of physical separation process, robust material and intelligent flow control achieves a consistently high filtration quality. Ceramic membrane filtration thus provides a reliable basis for the treatment of process water and wastewater in municipal and industrial applications. Even when water quality and load fluctuate greatly.
Patented filtration technology in 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.
Find out more in our Case studies
FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions
Various processes are used for water treatment, depending on the water quality and the desired application. These include mechanical processes (sedimentation, filtration, membrane technology), chemical processes (precipitation, flocculation, neutralization, disinfection with chlorine or ozone) and physical processes (UV irradiation, distillation, adsorption via activated carbon). A combination of these processes is used in many applications.
Various filtration processes are used in drinking water treatment. These include microfiltration (MF), Ultrafiltration (UF), Nanofiltration (NF) and Reverse osmosis (RO). While microfiltration retains larger particles and microorganisms, ultrafiltration also removes finer suspended particles and viruses. Nanofiltration and Reverse osmosis are even finer and are used to remove dissolved salts, minerals or pollutants.
Commercial water treatment refers to processes for cleaning and treating water that is used in commercial and smaller industrial operations - for example in laundries, food production or cooling circuits. The aim is to purify water efficiently and reuse it several times in order to reduce operating costs and comply with environmental regulations.
Water plays a central role in almost all branches of industry. For example, as process water, cooling water, cleaning medium or solvent. It is used in the chemical industry, food production, metalworking and energy generation, among others. As it is often heavily contaminated in the production process, reliable treatment is necessary in order to be able to reuse it or dispose of it safely.
In wastewater treatment, contaminated water is purified in several stages. The process usually begins with mechanical pre-treatment, in which coarse particles are separated out. This is often followed by biological processes, in which microorganisms break down organic substances, and chemical-physical stages to remove further pollutants. Modern technologies such as membrane filtration make it possible to significantly improve cleaning and remove even the finest impurities.
Wastewater treatment can be mechanical (screening, sedimentation), biological (activated sludge, trickling filter, membrane bioreactor) or chemical-physical (precipitation, neutralization, activated carbon, membrane technology). Several processes are often combined in order to achieve high water quality.
Industrial wastewater is produced in production processes, for example through cooling, cleaning or chemical reactions. It may contain organic and inorganic substances, oils, fats, chemicals or heavy metals and must therefore be treated professionally before being discharged into the sewer system or reused.
Yes, ceramic membrane filtration is particularly suitable for the treatment of wastewater. It works purely physically, reliably removing particles, micro-organisms, oil droplets and the finest impurities, thereby delivering a clear filtrate. Thanks to its robustness and durability, it is ideal for industrial wastewater with fluctuating quality or high loads.
Wastewater treatment plants are technical systems that purify wastewater from households, trade or industry so that it can either be reused or returned to the environment. Depending on the application, they consist of mechanical, biological and chemical-physical stages. Modern systems are increasingly integrating membrane technology in order to achieve a particularly high purification performance.
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