Ozone oxidation
Ozone is one of the most powerful oxidants in nature, which is why it is widely used in the treatment of both drinking and wastewater, either for disinfection and oxidation of contaminants. It presents great advantages such as the elimination of consumables, for example, sodium hypochlorite for water disinfection. In addition, it can be used prior to biological treatments to increase the biodegradability of the discharge.
Membrane treatments
Membrane water treatment is a separation operation in which a liquid with certain undesired components is passed through the surface of a membrane, so that it retains them and thus obtains a flow of product water with a concentration of contaminants lower. In these processes the driving force for the separation to take place is the pressure gradient.
Based on the degree of separation, they can be classified as:
- Microfiltration. The microleakage removal range is between 10 and 0.1 μm. retains suspended particles, algae, colloids and some microorganisms.
- Ultrafiltration. Colloidal matter and large molecules in the range 0.04 and 0.1 μm
- Nanofiltration. Intermediate step between ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis. Through this separation process, proteins, sugars, microorganisms and some multivalent salts are eliminated. Pore size between 0.1 and 0.001 μm
- Inverse osmosis. Process by which unwanted elements in the water are eliminated, forcing the fluid to pass through a semi-permeable membrane thanks to the application of a pressure greater than osmotic. In this way, through dissolution-diffusion phenomena, it is possible to separate the smallest molecules and salts, even the monovalent ones.
