Water Purification by Membrane Filtration is a fast growing global market – By Jorge Fernandez – Partner, Water Science & Marketing, LLC

Implications: Implications: The fundamentals in the global water industry will continue to be quite positive for many years ahead. Economic prosperity brings with it severe deterioration of water availability and quality all over the world. Membrane filtration is a proven method to successfully and efficiently improve water quality and companies operating in this space can be expected to meet or exceed the water industry growth rate.

Analysis:

Analysis:

Clean, drinking water can be rightfully credited as a major step in improving human health and prosperity. Unfortunately, for the last 50 years, much has happened to drinking water supplies around the world and most of it is not good.

Industrial and chemical pollution have been severe. For example, in areas of China –the world’s fastest growing economy, the situation is truly critical.

Also, agricultural water use and farmer subsidies have created water waste, and agriculture demand growth has been satisfied on the back of excessive use of fertilizers and herbicides, which eventually end up in the water streams.

Population growth, irrigation waste and urban sprawl have overwhelmed water supplies in many countries. In parallel, too much agricultural, industrial, and human waste goes untreated into the water streams that eventually provide one major source for drinking water. Most everywhere, groundwater is being exhausted and seawater invasion of underground freshwater reservoirs are too common.

The result is that according to the World Bank’s estimates, by 2025, as many as four billion people – or one half of the world’s population – could live under conditions of severe water stress, especially in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. In the developed countries, the picture is not so dismal, but it is serious. Here in the USA, for example, California and Texas governments know that at the current pace of growth some drastic measures will be needed to support demand. Generally everywhere, the ageing water distribution systems require revamping and large investments.

But there has been a positive development amidst the deterioration of water quality sources and the rising scarcity of clean water. That has been the development and broad acceptance of membrane filtration technologies. In their search for an efficient solution to the world’s clean-water crisis, water and wastewater treatment professionals rely on membrane filtration (in particular reverse osmosis or RO) as a purification technology that meets their needs better than anything else on the market. This technology is now at a point in the experience curve where its growth and presence will be truly pervasive and beyond drinking water production, with growing and broad applications into health care, food & beverage processing, desalination, microelectronics, industrial wastewater clean up, power and steam, exacting production processes in general, and many more.

The membrane solution

RO, which uses a semi-permeable membrane to remove from water virtually all particulate matter, turbidity, bacteria, micro-organisms, salts, proteins, asbestos, and even single molecules of the heavier organics,

has evolved into a most viable option for desalination and brackish water treatment in recent years.

Several categories of membrane filtration systems exist, including RO, Nanofiltration, Ultrafiltration, and Microfiltration. These are ways to classify membranes by the different particulate size that the membrane lets pass through. Of these, RO removes the smallest-sized particles from water. With pores ranging from .0005 microns to .0000002 microns, the membrane “catches” the majority of the impurities while allowing part of the incoming water to pass through, creating a purified water product.

Actually, the influent stream of water (feedwater) is separated into a “clean” stream, called permeate, and a “dirty” stream, called concentrate, with some of the water and all the impurities.

But this separation does not happen without expense –energy. The driving force of this separation process is pressure, between 100-to-1,200 pounds per square inch gauge (psig), to push water through the semi-permeable membrane. The worse the quality of the feedwater, the higher the pressure required. Red Sea water will probably require 1000 psig to 1200 psig to desalt because it is high in salt and minerals. Therefore, the greater the force—generally supplied by large pumps—required to overcome the osmotic pressure and pass the product or filtered water through the membrane.

RO membrane technology has been improving much over the last few years, reducing the required pressure to obtain good permeate water, and becoming more resistant to chemicals and materials that could harm membranes. This has reduced capital costs, energy costs, replacement costs and increasing efficiency when compared with other available treatment technologies such as distillation.

Today; thanks to advanced membrane technology, its lower costs, and higher water quality demands and regulations, RO membrane filtration is a leading filtration technology for areas like food & beverage, drug production and testing, desalination, pollution control, water purification, textile, biotechnology, semiconductor manufacturing and fuel cell markets. And membrane solutions not only apply to large municipal or industrial processes, they also are found in under-the-sink household purification systems as well as in restaurants, hotels and any other institution that has to use or serve good water.

Where is Membrane filtration headed?

The manufacturers of filtration membranes like R.O. have been in a fast growth mode since the 70’s. These were the years when the technology went from early adoption, to broad acceptance, where it is today. This period included normal market development events like new entrants, industry consolidation, dramatic reduction in the cost curve, product improvements, discovery of new uses, pricing to market share gains and the like.

Today, the market is estimated at close to $10 Billion dollars in size, growing at double digit rates and it includes a good number of companies originated in the major geographical market -the US, Japan, Europe, and Asia/China, with most of them playing the global sales game.

Some of the key players are part of larger conglomerates, like Dow Chemical’s Filmtec, GE’s Osmonics, and Zenon, Koch Membranes, Nitto-Denko’s Hydranautics (Japan) and Saehan (Korea). Others are smaller independent companies, like Singapore’s Hyflux and Sinomem, Netherlands Norit, and, in the USA, Pall, Millipore, Polypore, and Tri-Sep.

Currently this market is witnessing that:

a) prices are falling, as a result of increased competition,

b) affordability widens the breadth of applications –not just in sewage and drinking water treatment but also in de-contaminating juices, fluids, fuels, gases, etc.

c) global market growth is one of the fastest in the overall water industry

d) innovation is driven by manufacturers improving membrane selectivity, energy use and lasting ability with many of these companies building on profitable niche applications

e) for applications in treating sewage and industrial discharge, in drinking water purification and bacteria removal, in treating water for boilers and seawater in desalination plants and in the production of biopharmaceuticals, to name a few, membrane filtration systems are now widespread, growing and the accepted technology.