Treatment of textile effluents by membrane technologies Presented at the Conference on Desalination and the Environment, Santa Margherita, Italy, 22-26 May 2005. European Desalination Society

The textile industry is a large water consumer. As regulations become stringent and the cost of freshwater increases, reclamation of wastewater becomes more and more attractive. This paper presents the results of the laboratory-scale membrane experiments of textile industry effluents previously biologically treated by activated sludge. Different types of Microfiltration (MF), Ultrafiltration (UF) and Nanofiltration (NF) membranes were evaluated for permeate flux and their suitability in separating COD, colour, conductivity, Total dissolved salts (TDS) and turbidity. Experiments demonstrated that membrane treatment is a very promising advanced treatment option for pollution control for textile industry effluents.