Water filtration has the potential of being highly beneficial to your company, regardless of which industry you are in.
Water is unquestionably the one thing we cannot go without. Not only is it vital to human life, but also for keeping the economy going. Operations across all industries are dependent on water, from municipalities to farming to manufacturing.
Although water should be clean, it isn’t always. Pollution, chemicals, heavy metals, and organic waste all contaminate our water supplies. At best, they impart a mildly unpleasant tang or smell to our water. At worst, they compromise our health.
Fortunately, industrial water filtration systems offer a convenient and cost-effective way to make sure your water meets relevant quality standards. Whether you would like to treat your on-site borehole water, reuse your industrial wastewater, or simply polish your municipal water, filtration could greatly increase efficiency at your company.
Before looking into the benefits of filtration, however, it is important to understand what exactly filtration is.
What is Water Filtration?
Filtration is the process in which solid particles in a liquid fluid are removed by the use of a filter medium that permits the fluid to pass through but retains the solid particles.
The term “filtration” applies whether the filter is mechanical, biological, or physical.
The filter medium may be a surface filter, which is a solid that traps solid particles, or a depth filter, which is a bed of material that traps the solid.
Water filtration systems are especially important for commercial, industrial and municipal applications, helping to improve operational performance efficiency.
Benefits of Water Filtration
1. Reduction of Suspended Solids
Water filtration systems are intended to reduce the concentration of suspended solids and turbidity in water. Some industries, such as food and beverage, paper, textiles, and oil produce high levels of suspended solids that a single treatment method is not going to be able to handle on its own. Filtration makes that easier.
For example, we incorporated media filtration in the water treatment plant we manufactured for Finlar Fine Foods to remove suspended solids from the borehole water.
2. Reduction of Other Contaminants
Depending on the method you use, filtration systems do not just work on suspended solids or turbidity issues. Different types of filtration systems can also remove pollutants like ammonia, iron, manganese, volatile organic compounds, and others. These filtration systems are able to reduce these particular contaminants to allow for better efficiency of downstream water treatment systems.
At Boontjieskraal, a farm in the Overberg, we filtered brackish borehole water to remove iron and manganese, for instance.
3. Greater Treatment Efficiency
Used as a supplement to other treatment systems, filtration units can improve the efficiency of the overall treatment. This greater efficiency comes down to either pre-treatment or polishing. As a pre-treatment, water filtration reduces the concentrations of contaminants.
In certain cases, filtration systems can be used in a polishing step. This is typically the case in wastewater treatment applications in commercial/industrial facilities after the water has undergone moving bed biofilm reactor (MBBR) treatment.
4. Less Equipment Maintenance
Industrial water filtration systems, when operated in maximum efficiency conditions, typically provide for lower equipment maintenance of downstream treatment processes. They are usually designed to operate in such a manner for this very reason.
In most of our reverse osmosis water treatment systems we introduce a filtration stage before the reverse osmosis stage to extend the life of the reverse osmosis membranes. This is the case in the water treatment systems we installed at De Grendel Wine Estate and Rotex Fabrics, for example.
Want to know more about the benefits of industrial water filtration systems for your company? Contact the water filtration experts at Water Purification Solutions at 021 851 2451 or info@iwpsa.co.za to discuss your application in more detail.
