I strongly support the ...
Published by Nikolay Voutchkov, Water Globe Consulting, LLC - President
I strongly support the observations of Dr. Talavera. I have worked on 9 SWRO desalination projects in the Middle East, where they use UF or MF system for pretreatment as a single pretreatment stage and all of them operate at 20 to 30% below their design capacity. UF and MF filtration are excellent (but expensive) technology to remove suspended solids and pathogens but have only disadvantages in terms of reducing the biofouling potential of seawater, brackish water or wastewater. In seawater the main type of fouling is biofouling - seawater bacteria are not pathogens for humans and they do not reduce biofouling - quite the opposite - they accelerate it. As suggested by Dr. Talavera, if you install conventional deep gravity media filter upstream of the existing UF system, the gravity filters will gently remove the algae and bacteria, and if their total media is deeper than 1.8 meters, they will also remove dissolved organics by biofiltration in the bottom third portion of the filter. So you existing UF system will work as expensive back washable cartridge filters and you will need it as such if your existing UF system does not have cartridge filters downstream of it.