AWWA WQTC69403

A pilot study was conducted on source water in Texas with high turbidity, high color and high organic contents. The treatment scheme included pretreatment with chlorine dioxide, PACl and sodium permanganate. The pretreated water was then sent to a conventional clarifier with plates. The coagulated and clarified water was filtered using microfiltration/ultrafiltration (MF/UF) membranes. Similar pretreatment was used for ceramic membranes and water quality performance of ceramic membranes was compared with polymeric membranes in terms of turbidity, color and organics removal. The ceramic membranes were operated in dead-end and cross flow filtration mode. Experiments were conducted to determine optimum pretreatment for ceramic membranes. The preliminary results showed ceramic membranes are comparable to polymeric membranes under similar conditions in terms of organic and turbidity removal. The permeability rates of ceramic membranes are superior to the permeability rates of polymeric membranes. Ceramic membrane performance was independent of the mode of operation. Includes tables, figures.