Technological innovation for the production of drinking water by membrane processes

It is now common knowledge that membrane filtration processes can be considered as high performance separation techniques, not only in laboratory experiments but also in many industrial applications. With its strong development for the production of large-scale drinking water, the ultrafiltration on membrane hollow fibers appears as an appropriate, successful and economic technique for the purification of water in numerous applications. It often replaces more conventional desalination techniques. It has a capacity to eliminate not only small particles, but as a pathogenic, by including micro-organisms, viruses, and some dissolved organic species. The choice of this technique for the production of drinking water from groundwater in a rural environment (Morocco) is the object of an experimental project: the technological innovation and industrial partnership, Morocco and Noon, French Pyrenees, "Development of Membrane Technique for the Treatment of the water".

The membrane of ultrafiltration out of hollow fibers constitutes an insuperable barrier for the suspended matter of a size less than 0.01µm. Without the addition of a coagulant and flocculating agent, ultrafiltration makes it possible to produce drinking water starting from natural water. The only energy expenditure thus relates then to the cycles of washings of the membranes. The process of desalination is on its way to being recognized on a world level as one of the most effective techniques. The installation in Morocco of a unit of this type is a 0 CFU/ml first, not only from the technical and scientific point of view (better knowledge, development and adaptation of the process by Moroccan scientists to the local problems) but also from the point of view of human development, concretization of the established relations, advantages and exploitation of a future and advanced technology for the production of drinking water in rural environments.