The treatment of digestate and wastewater with high levels of suspended solids presents a complex challenge for many industries, particularly the agri-food, livestock and anaerobic digestion sectors. The use of polymeric tubular ultrafiltration membranes offers a highly efficient solution for separating the liquid fraction from the solid fraction, ensuring high-quality treated water and reducing the volume of waste to be disposed of.

Tubular Ultrafiltration Technology

Polymer tubular membranes are designed to handle wastewater with high levels of suspended solids and colloids, whilst maintaining high performance and reducing the need for complex pre-treatment processes. The system operates using a tangential flow filtration process, in which the fluid flows parallel to the membrane surface, minimising the risk of clogging and promoting effective particle separation.

Key Benefits of Tubular Membranes

• Resistant to high concentrations of suspended solids, up to 60,000 mg/L, ensuring high efficiency even with particularly heavily loaded effluent.
• High chemical and mechanical resistance, ensuring long-term stable performance.
• A significant reduction in sludge volume, resulting in lower disposal costs.
• Easy to clean and maintain, thanks to the tubular design which prevents severe fouling.
• High efficiency in removing bacteria, viruses and macromolecules, thereby improving the quality of the permeate.

Integration with Reverse Osmosis for Maximum Efficiency

Following the ultrafiltration stage, the resulting permeate can be further purified using reverse osmosis membranes, thereby reducing the level of dissolved contaminants and allowing the treated water to be reused or discharged into the sewer system.

• Reduction in the volume of concentrated effluent, removing up to 70–80% of the water present in the digestate.
• Discharge in compliance with environmental regulations, with the permeate able to be discharged into the sewer system or reused in industrial processes.
• Recovery of clean water, thereby reducing the plant’s overall water consumption.

Applications of the System

• Treatment of digestate from anaerobic digestion plants.
• Treatment of livestock and agro-industrial wastewater with a high organic load.
• Separation of the liquid fraction from industrial sludge, thereby reducing the volume of material requiring disposal.

The combined use of tubular ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis enables water recovery to be maximised, operating costs to be reduced and the overall efficiency of digestate and industrial wastewater treatment to be improved.