Utilization of porous and non-porous polymeric materials in ultrafiltration and distillation for water treatment systems

In recent decades, polymeric materials have gained wide global utilization in a variety of applications such as heat insulation, adhesive, food packaging and many more. Ultrafiltration (UF) membrane made from polyethersulfone (PES) is a commercial synthetic porous material for water treatment applications. Besides filtration, solar distillation systems are also commonly used to purify water especially for small rural communities lacking of clean water and electricity supplies. Solar stills are cost efficient and simple systems that harness solar energy to purify water with the distillation process. Non-porous transparent polymeric materials such as thin polycarbonate (PC) films have been widely utilized as covers for these solar stills. A detailed study has been conducted on the PES membrane and PC film utilized in two different water treatment systems located in Malaysia. Water samples analyses results have indicated that both systems are capable of purifying river water into drinking water in compliance to relevant standards. The permeability of the PES membrane is 333.4 L/m3 hr Bar and solar irradiation penetration level for the PC film has an average of 90%. These distinctive characteristics of the PES and PC materials have indicated the suitability for application in water treatment systems. Experiments conducted under this study have highlighted that even though both polymeric materials have opposite characteristics (porous against non-porous), it could be applied for the same purpose in water purification. Although the UF system requires far lower footprint (0.038 m2/m3) compared to the solar stills system (250 m2/m3), it consumes 0.21 kWh/m3 of electricity for the pressure driven filtration process. The solar stills system only requires the sun’s solar irradiation for the distillation process without the need of electricity. These actual operational data elucidates the development of utilizing opposite characteristics (porous against non-porous) polymeric materials in water treatment systems.