Ultrafiltration and ultrasound set to give textile effluents a thorough clean

These are the “ultra-“ techniques that have the potential to revolutionize how we clean industrial effluents such as those produced by the textile industry. Ultrafiltration is used to filter out particles and suspended solids on a nanometer scale using purely physical means, a technology that has been pioneered by the German company inge watertechnologies AG. Its ultrafiltration technology is already employed worldwide to treat drinking water, process water, sea water and wastewater. The PURIFAST project is funded by the EU commission and aims to discover whether a combination of ultrafiltration and ultrasound can replace the costly process of reverse osmosis in successfully removing organic components of water such as dyes subsequent to ultrafiltration. The goal is to establish a method of treating textile effluents that optimizes both the ecological and economic aspects.

As part of the PURIFAST project, the EU commission has provided 2.2 million euros to help fund the development of an innovative and efficient method of treating problematic effluents such as those produced in the textile industry. In addition to the input from Germany – comprising the ultrafiltration specialists inge watertechnologies and the Rhine-Westphalian Institute of Water Research (IWW Water Centre) – other partners in the project include GIDA, Next Technology Tecnotessile and the companies LAVO and Tintoria King Colour from Italy, as well as the University of Florence and the French company Polymem.

Ultrafiltration treats water using purely physical means in order to remove suspended solids, particles and bacteria. Textile effluents feature a high degree of contamination, which poses a particular challenge to the ultrafiltration membrane. inge watertechnologies AG has been conducting research as part of the PURIFAST project in order to optimally tailor both its patented Multibore membrane and process control system to the project's requirements. The aspects being addressed include pore size and geometry, membrane hydrophilicity, determining the best flux and the optimum backflush flow rate, deploying cleaning chemicals and minimizing their use, etc.
In order to put the new technique to the test, a facility has been set up in the textile town of Prato in Tuscany to treat the municipal wastewater, which is heavily contaminated by the textile industry. This test project involved the simultaneous installation of three, independently controlled membrane lines to enable the optimum adjustments to be identified as quickly as possible. The acid test comes next year with the installation of the process at the textile dyeing facilities of the Italian company Tintoria King Colour.
Peter Berg, Chief Technology Officer of inge watertechnologies AG, explains further: “If we succeed in cleaning up textile effluents at a reasonable cost using ultrafiltration and ultrasound, this should lead to a boom in the recycling of industrial effluents. The treatment of organic substances such as dyes in ultrafiltered water is currently tackled by reverse osmosis. However, this is an expensive method, especially when you consider the amount of energy it requires. If ultrafiltration and ultrasound can provide a better return on investment, then nothing will stand in the way of deploying this new system on a global scale.”

About inge watertechnologies AG
The company inge watertechnologies AG, based in the town of Greifenberg near Munich in Bavaria, Germany, employs more than 80 staff and is the world's leading provider of ultrafiltration technology, a membrane process used to treat drinking water, process water, wastewater and sea water.
With a global reach enhanced by its network of partners, the company has completed numerous reference products around the globe featuring its cutting-edge technology. Its range of products include highly-efficient ultrafiltration modules and cost-effective, space-saving rack designs as the core components of water treatment plants, rounded off by the superb technical support it provides to its customers.
All the company's products are based on the in-house development of its patented Multibore® membrane technology, providing the top-quality standards for which German-made goods are famous. The extremely small-pore filters of the Multibore® membrane reliably intercept not only particles, but also microorganisms such as bacteria and viruses, thereby providing a dependable source of clean water. Deployment of the inge technology also offers significant advantages over conventional water treatment methods, such as rapid and easy module installation and stable, highly resilient membranes. This makes planning a water treatment facility much simpler, enabling customers to achieve low-cost installation and operation. And all this comes with a guarantee of long-lasting reliability.

inge watertechnologies AG
Flurstraße 27
D-86926 Greifenberg
Deutschland
Phone: +49 8192 / 997-700
Fax: +49 8192 / 997-999
E-Mail: perner@inge.ag
Internet: www.inge.ag

This release was published on openPR.