Research Progress of Membrane Technology in Drinking Water Advanced Treatment

Currently, drinking water (DW) safety has been increasingly concerned, and membranes as an advanced treatment technology have been widely used. This paper reviews the membrane processes in the DW advanced treatment process: reverse osmosis, nanofiltration, ultrafiltration purification, and microfiltration. The filtration mechanisms and operating conditions of the four membranes are studied. Generally, the membrane process is combined with the conventional process to obtain satisfactory results in DW treatment. Moreover, membrane contamination is an inevitable issue in the application, and the ways to avoid these issues are via cleaning, changing the membrane material, and introducing the influent water pretreatment. In this paper, progress is introduced through the research and application of membrane technology to provide more purification means for DW treatment.