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Markets & applications

There is no universal membrane solution: every feed water, effluent and product stream imposes its own combination of membrane class, module format, pretreatment and operating regime. Below — the fields we work in, and how typical problems in each are actually solved.

Water treatment

Potable, process and high-purity water

Municipal & decentralized potable water. Groundwater polishing — nanofiltration for hardness, color and organics, with catalytic media for iron and manganese ahead of the membranes; ultrafiltration as a pathogen barrier on surface waters; brackish reverse osmosis with remineralization and blending to meet drinking-water standards (EU Drinking Water Directive 2020/2184 and national codes). Small-footprint skid systems for municipalities, housing developments, hotels and bottlers.

Industrial process water. Boiler feed and make-up trains for power and heating plants (softening or UF → RO → EDI or mixed-bed polishing), condensate polishing, cooling-tower make-up and blowdown recovery. Multi-pass RO with EDI, degasification and polishing loops toward ultrapure specifications for electronics. Pharmaceutical Purified Water and Highly Purified Water trains engineered around EP/USP monographs with sanitary, hot-water-sanitizable design. Spot-free rinse water for surface treatment and paint shops.

Desalination. Brackish wellfield RO from single skids to multi-train plants, including high-recovery configurations with concentrate staging and inter-stage boost. Seawater RO with isobaric energy-recovery devices; boron management via a second pass or pH-shifted operation; containerized plug-and-play units for coastal and island sites, camps and seasonal demand.

Emerging duties. PFAS barriers — RO and tight NF reject long- and short-chain PFAS ahead of destruction technologies. Water-reuse trains (MBR/UF → RO → UV-AOP) driven by tightening European urban-wastewater and industrial-emissions rules. Ultrapure feedwater for hydrogen electrolyzers and data-center cooling make-up.

Aerial view of water treatment infrastructure with circular basins

Example solutions

Iron- and hardness-bearing well water for a hotel or bottler

Problem

Groundwater with dissolved iron and manganese, high hardness and slight color — staining, scale and off-taste in the product.

Typical train

Aeration or oxidant dosing → catalytic media filtration for Fe/Mn → cartridge filtration → nanofiltration or softener + RO → calcite remineralization → UV disinfection.

Why membranes

NF removes hardness, color and most organics in one pass without brine-intensive softening of the full flow; blending sets the exact final hardness.

What we do

Water analysis review, projection, vessel/element selection, supplier RFQs, commissioning and a normalization baseline for the operator.

Boiler feed water for a heating or power plant

Problem

Raw water conductivity and silica drive blowdown losses, chemical consumption and turbine/boiler deposit risk.

Typical train

Softening or UF pretreatment → single- or double-pass RO → EDI or mixed-bed polishing → degassing; condensate polishing where justified.

Result

Demineralized make-up at <0.2 µS/cm with silica controlled to boiler-code limits, cutting blowdown and dosing chemistry substantially versus ion exchange alone.

What we do

Train sizing against steam balance, silica and CO₂ management strategy, bid levelling between IX-based and membrane-based offers.

Seawater desalination for a coastal site

Problem

No reliable municipal supply; trucked water is expensive and seasonal demand peaks are hard to cover.

Typical train

Open intake or beach well → UF or media pretreatment → 5 µm cartridge → high-pressure pump with isobaric energy recovery → SWRO → remineralization and blending — often containerized.

Key decisions

Intake type and fouling regime, energy-recovery selection, boron strategy, materials (super-duplex on the high-pressure side), remote monitoring for unmanned operation.

What we do

Feasibility with specific-energy and lifecycle cost comparison, supplier screening, FAT/SAT and start-up support.

Water reuse or PFAS barrier for an industrial site

Problem

Tightening discharge permits, PFAS obligations, or the need to recycle treated effluent back into utilities or irrigation.

Typical train

Tertiary UF or MBR → RO → UV or UV-advanced oxidation; PFAS-tight NF/RO with defined concentrate handling ahead of destruction or licensed disposal.

Key decisions

Recovery versus concentrate fate, credit for reduced intake water, monitoring and validation regime required by the permit.

What we do

Regulatory-driven option study, piloting protocol, projections and procurement of the selected train.

Industrial wastewater

Volume reduction and resource recovery

Liquid-waste disposal is priced by volume; membrane concentration attacks the volume. The economic logic is consistent across industries: concentrate the stream by a factor of 3–10, reuse the permeate where regulation allows, and hand a far smaller concentrate to disposal, evaporation or valorization. Payback is usually calculated directly against the current disposal or transport cost per cubic meter.

Stream chemistry dictates the hardware: spiral-wound elements where feeds are compatible; tubular, plate or ceramic modules where viscosity, solids or fouling potential rule spirals out — with conventional pretreatment (screening, flotation, coagulation–flocculation) protecting the membrane stages. Concentrate management — recirculation, valorization, evaporation interface or licensed disposal — is treated as part of the design, not an afterthought.

Stream	Typical treatment approach	Objective
Landfill leachate	Two/three-stage RO or disc-tube RO (DTRO); permeate polishing; concentrate recirculation or further treatment	Discharge compliance, volume cut
Biogas digestate & manure	Mechanical separation → tubular/spiral UF → RO; ammonia handling by stripping or acidification	Nutrient concentrate, reusable water
Dairy & food-plant effluent	Fat/solids removal (DAF) → UF → NF/RO; segregated CIP recovery — caustic recovery by NF or ceramic membranes	Water reuse, chemical recovery
Olive-mill & fruit effluents	Screening/centrifugation → UF → NF/RO cascade; polyphenol-rich fractions recoverable	Volume cut, by-product recovery
Metal finishing & plating	RO/IX rinse-water recycling; NF for acid/metal-salt separation; closed-loop rinsing	Water recycling, metal recovery
Textile dye baths	NF for dye retention with salt passage; hot-caustic recovery (mercerization) via ceramic/NF	Reuse of water, salt and caustic
Oily emulsions & coolants	Tubular or ceramic UF; RO polish of UF permeate where reuse is targeted	Oil-phase concentration, water reuse
Municipal reuse schemes	MBR or tertiary UF → RO → UV/AOP	Irrigation, industrial or indirect potable reuse
Pre-concentration for ZLD	High-recovery / high-pressure RO ahead of evaporator-crystallizer	Cut thermal duty and OPEX of ZLD

Example solutions

Landfill leachate to discharge quality

Problem

High-COD, high-ammonia, high-salinity leachate; hauling to an external treatment plant costs more every year.

Typical train

pH trim and cartridge filtration → first-stage disc-tube RO → second-stage DTRO on permeate → optional polishing RO; concentrate recirculated to the landfill body or further treated.

What decides success

Realistic recovery targets against osmotic pressure, scaling control at high concentration factors, and honest membrane-life budgeting — this is where vendor proposals differ most.

What we do

Proposal audit or full sourcing mandate, plus commissioning with a normalization baseline so fouling is caught early.

Biogas digestate into nutrient concentrate and clean water

Problem

Digestate volumes exceed nearby land-application capacity; transport dominates operating cost.

Typical train

Decanter or screw-press separation → tubular or open-channel UF → RO concentration; ammonia managed by stripping or acidification; permeate discharged or reused.

Result

A fraction of the original volume travels as N/P-rich concentrate; the water fraction stays on site.

What we do

Mass balance and payback modelling against current hauling cost, pilot verification, format selection (spirals fail here more often than suppliers admit), sourcing and start-up.

CIP caustic recovery in a food plant

Problem

Spent cleaning caustic is dumped to drain after each cycle — lost chemical, high effluent load, pH-neutralization cost.

Typical train

Segregated spent-caustic collection → ceramic or caustic-stable polymeric NF/UF → recovered lye returned to the CIP set; organic load leaves with the small retentate stream.

Result

The bulk of the caustic is recycled, effluent COD and neutralization chemistry drop accordingly; typical paybacks are short in multi-line plants.

What we do

CIP survey, recovery-rate estimate, membrane selection and trials, integration engineering with the existing CIP automation.

Food & beverage

Separation as a product line

Sanitary membrane processing is where separation stops being a cost and becomes a product. The classic case is cheese whey: once an effluent problem, now the feedstock for whey-protein ingredients. We support dairies and beverage producers in both directions — valorizing streams they already have, and adding products they do not yet make.

Stainless steel milk processing equipment inside a dairy plant

The whey cascade

Each membrane stage cuts the stream into a sellable fraction. A complete line turns one by-product into three or four revenue streams plus reusable process water:

Simplified whey valorization cascade. Retentate (upward/downward branches) is the product at each stage; the RO retentate carries the concentrated solids for evaporation or direct use.

Product-line expansion. Concentrated whey and milk-protein fractions feed directly into feta-style and ricotta-type whey cheeses, cottage cheese, high-protein yoghurts and drinks (UF-retentate fortification), and lactose-free lines combining a membrane split with enzymatic hydrolysis. Milk-side applications include MF micellar-casein standardization, bacteria and spore reduction by MF, and protein standardization of cheese milk — raising vat yields without additives.

Beverages. Cross-flow MF/UF clarification of juice, wine, beer and cider — replacing kieselguhr filtration and its disposal problem. RO pre-concentration of juices and extracts; partial dealcoholization of wine and beer by RO or membrane contactors; maple-syrup and coffee/tea extract concentration; brine and caustic recovery from food-plant utilities.

Beyond dairy. Plant-protein concentration (pea, oat, potato), egg-white concentration by UF, gelatin concentration, sugar decolorization by NF — the same unit operations, different product sheets.

Example solutions

Adding a WPC line to a cheese dairy

Situation

Whey is sold cheap or given away; protein prices make an in-house concentration step attractive.

Typical scope

MF pre-clarification → UF to WPC-35 or, with diafiltration, WPC-60/80 → NF or RO to reduce evaporation duty; sanitary spiral elements, hot CIP, GAMP-aligned automation.

Key decisions

Target protein spec versus dryer capability, seasonal whey volumes, element grades and CIP chemistry compatible with dairy soils.

What we do

Feasibility with product mass balance, supplier RFQs for the complete line, and commissioning to spec.

Cold clarification of juice or cider

Situation

Kieselguhr filtration produces disposal waste, batch variability and operator exposure concerns.

Typical scope

Enzymatic treatment → cross-flow UF (polymeric or ceramic) → optional RO pre-concentration; automated backflush and CIP.

Result

Consistent clarity without filter aids, higher yield from lees recovery, and a cleaner effluent balance.

What we do

Trial planning with your product, module-format selection, integration with existing cellar or line automation.

Which configuration fits your stream?

Fouling behavior is rarely predictable from analysis alone — we scope lab and pilot verification before anyone signs for full-scale equipment.

Ask about your application