According to UN-Water, by 2025 water scarcity will be affecting 1.8 billion people, with two-thirds of the world population possibly living under conditions of water stress. There exists, hence, a strong need to rigorously manage drinking water resources. The production of potable water by membrane water treatment systems is relatively economic and benign. About 80 million m3 of potable water are already produced nowadays using membranes. However, the efficiency of membrane water treatment processes may severely be impeded by a phenomenon known as "membrane fouling". Hereby, organic matter present in the water to be treated adsorbs on the surface of the porous membrane filters, resulting in the build-up of a surface layer which then increasingly closes the membrane pores and, hence, dramatically diminishes the potable water production. If
detected at an early stage, such fouling could be counteracted by adequate process operating conditions. Once a rigid
fouling layer is formed, however, chemically aggressive membrane cleaning procedures need to be employed with
respective negative environmental impact.
ESSENS developed a monitoring device that allows detection of fouling layers at an early-stage before they detrimentally affect the membrane filtration process. Based on advanced surface-sensitive techniques, ESSENS has led to the development of a monitoring prototype that thus outperforms existing fouling detection techniques in sensitivity and versatility, and allows
optimizing both fouling prevention and membrane cleaning cycles. The result is a significantly more efficient and sustainable membrane water treatment processes, enabling a greatly improved management of the drinking water production.
