Optimal Combination of Flocculating Filtration and Ultra Filtration for Advanced Effluent Treatment in the Netherlands

Abstract

With changing policies to solve local environmental and dehydration problems and with increasing interest in differentiation of water qualities by industrial and domestic users, a growing need exists to improve the effluent quality of wastewater treatment plants (wwtp) in the Netherlands. The change of policy to retain water in its original environment as much as possible leads to an increasing interest in discharging wwtp effluent into polders and local water courses instead of large surface waters. Besides, a new element is the interest in the production of household and industry water by the Dutch drinking water companies. At several Dutch wwtp's research on (the combination of) fluocculating filtration and ultra filtration is done to develop the possibilities of (re)using effluent in the Netherlands. The results of the research have shown that flocculating filtration and/or ultra filtration are technically and economically applicable for the production of household and industry water.