Ultrafiltration (UF) Water Treatment System

Ultrafiltration uses hollow-fiber membranes with a 0.03 µm pore size to physically remove suspended solids, bacteria, protozoa, colloids and most viruses without any chemical dosing. Anything larger than the pore is retained; dissolved salts and minerals pass through. That makes UF the right tool when the problem is turbidity and microbiology rather than salinity — surface water, river water, reservoir water and mountain spring water — and the standard pretreatment stage ahead of reverse osmosis. The KJ-UF platform spans 2,000 to 40,000 L/h in standard models and 6 to 4,000 m³/day overall.

Key Features

• 0.03 µm PVDF hollow-fiber membrane — physical barrier to bacteria, protozoa, colloids and suspended solids
• Standard capacities 2,000 to 40,000 L/h; overall platform range 6 to 4,000 m³/day
• Accepts feed turbidity up to 300 ppm and total suspended solids up to 100 ppm
• No chemical dosing required for normal operation — separation is purely physical
• Manual or fully automatic control; PLC and touchscreen on the larger models
• Automatic backwash and air scour restore flux without operator intervention
• Retains beneficial minerals, unlike RO — often the preferred choice for drinking water from clean sources
• Compact skid construction; immersed and mobile variants available

How It Works

Raw water passes through a quartz sand filter to strip coarse solids, then activated carbon where chlorine, taste and odour need removal, then a precision cartridge filter. The pretreated water is fed into hollow-fiber ultrafiltration modules, where it is driven through the 0.03 µm membrane wall from outside to inside. Filtrate is collected from the fiber lumens; retained solids accumulate on the membrane surface. At set intervals the system reverses flow and injects air to scour the accumulated layer off the fibers and flush it to drain. Because the separation is a physical sieve rather than a chemical or biological process, output quality does not drift with load, and startup is immediate after a shutdown.

Model Selection Table

An all-in-one immersed variant of the 25 T/h unit is also available. Inlet water temperature 5–35 °C across the range.

Applications

• Municipal water plants: surface water and reservoir treatment to drinking water standard
• Rural and village supply: turning turbid river, stream and mountain spring water into safe tap water
• RO pretreatment: protecting downstream reverse osmosis membranes from colloidal fouling
• Food and beverage: process water clarification and sterile filtration duty
• Fishery and aquaculture: process water filtration, commonly paired with ozone disinfection
• Industrial water reuse: polishing treated effluent to a quality suitable for recycling

Why Choose HydropureWater Ultrafiltration Systems?

Ultrafiltration is where HydropureWater partner plants have the deepest project record — municipal water plants at 60 and 120 m³/hour, town water works at 80 m³/hour, and rural drinking-water safety schemes at 200 m³/day. That matters because UF performance in the field is decided by how the backwash and air-scour regime is tuned to the actual raw water, not by the membrane datasheet. We size the module count, backwash pump and air flow against your turbidity and suspended solids profile, and supply manual, automatic or immersed configurations depending on whether the site has full-time operators.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis?

UF has a 0.03 µm pore and removes particles, bacteria and colloids while letting dissolved salts and minerals through. RO removes dissolved salts as well. If your problem is turbidity or microbiology, UF is cheaper to run and retains beneficial minerals. If your problem is salinity, hardness or TDS, you need RO — frequently with UF in front of it as pretreatment.

What raw water quality can the UF system accept?

Up to 300 ppm turbidity and 100 ppm total suspended solids. Water dirtier than that needs a coagulation or sedimentation stage upstream, otherwise backwash frequency rises to the point where net output collapses.

Does ultrafiltration remove viruses?

A 0.03 µm membrane retains bacteria and protozoa completely and removes most viruses, but virus particles can be smaller than the pore. Where potable water is the end use, UF is normally followed by UV or ozone disinfection as a final barrier — the KJ-UFA-4T-D includes an ozone generator in its standard process for exactly this reason.

How often does the membrane need replacing?

PVDF hollow-fiber modules typically last several years when the automatic backwash and air-scour cycle is maintained and feed turbidity stays within specification. Routine maintenance is cartridge filter changes and periodic chemical cleaning; module replacement is a planned event rather than a frequent one.

Project References

• 60 m³/hour UF System — 317,000 GPD municipal water plant filtration system
• 80 m³/hour UF System — Zhonghua Town water plant, mountain spring water to town tap water
• 120 m³/hour UF System — water plant filtration system
• 200 m³/day UF System — rural area drinking water safety purification and filtration
• 40 m³ Immersed UF — stream, river and mountain spring water purification

After-Sales Service & Support

• 12-Month Full Warranty — covers all manufacturing defects in materials and workmanship
• Lifetime Technical Support — our engineering team provides remote diagnostics and troubleshooting assistance
• Spare Parts Guarantee — critical spare parts shipped within 48 hours worldwide
• On-Site Commissioning — factory-trained engineers available for installation supervision and operator training
• Preventive Maintenance Programs — customized maintenance schedules to maximize equipment lifespan