Water technology for drinking water in difficult circumstances

In emergencies, relief agencies often use surface water as water sources for treatment and subsequent supply to internally displaced people or refugees. Producing drinking water from surface water is often very difficult due to disruption of the infrastructure and public services. Gravity driven ultrafiltration uses the principle of gravity to provide sufficient pressure to drive the feed water through the membrane. When dead-end filtration is operated without any backwashing or chemical cleaning, permeate flux stabilised after one week of operation and remained constant for a period of one month. Lake water in Nanyang Technological University was used as feed water and stable permeate flux values were in the range of 4.8 – 6.1 Lh-1m-2. 4 flatsheet membranes of different material types were tested for this purpose and polyvinylidene fluoride membrane was found to produce the highest permeate flux. To ensure that the supply of such water to the affected people remains suitable for consumption and usage, membrane integrity sensors were introduced and a pilot study was run to determine the viability of incorporating this technology into the system.Bachelor of Engineering (Environmental Engineering