Treatment of istanbul surface water using low pressure UF membranes

More strict drinking water standards have been regulated latterly since certain contaminants and their by products even at very low concentrations in water have been found to have negative impacts on human health. While providing water to consumers upon treatment through conventional systems has been considered important until recently, producing water which is of good quality and free from pollutants that may negatively affect the human health has become more crucial today. Membrane systems produce safe water and provide a lower operation cost due to their lower operating pressures. Therefore, low-pressure membrane systems became widely used. In this study, effects on treatment performances at the Büyükçekmece, Kağıthane and Ömerli Drinking Water Treatment Plants by integration of UF membranes operated under low vacuum and pressure condtitions were investigated and analyzed. For this purpose, two pilot membrane units were used. The molecular weight cut off (MWCO) of UF membranes is generally 150 kDa. To determine the efficiency of membrane systems, total coliforms, total organic carbon (TOC), UV254 and turbidity were measured in the feed and filtrate water of these UF systems. In additon to these water quality parameters, flow rate, pressure, flux and energy consumption were also measured. No total coliforms were determined in the filtrate of both pilot-scale systems and required residual disinfectant concentration was reduced to a minimum level. The filtrate water turbidity showed a mean value of lower than 0.05 NTU. It was determined that the vacuum-driven pilot system achieved higher TOC and UV254 removal efficiency than the pressure-driven one. Similarly, vacuum-driven system needed less energy consumption than the pressure-driven one.