Water. Desalination + reuse
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/545366
August-September 2015 | Desalination & Water Reuse | 29 | TECHNOLOGY _________ Tyler Algeo and James Fotouhi BlueTech Research ___ In a recent report on ceramic membranes, BlueTech Research reviewed the technology's rate of adoption in water and wastewater treatment applications. Drawing on that analysis the authors here look at how improvements in life-cycle costs are affecting that adoption and how recent innovations could drive ceramics' market penetration further. THE DEVELOPMENT OF ceramic ultrafi ltration (UF) membranes actually predates that of their polymeric counterparts, however ceramics only make up a fraction of the market for membrane fi ltration products in water and wastewater treatment. While the US$ 500 million UF treatment market continues to grow in applications including reverse-osmosis pretreatment and municipal wastewater and drinking water treatment, ceramics have a market share of only 2-3%. BlueTech Research has modelled ceramic ultrafi ltration membrane adoption for water and wastewater applications over the previous 20 years (fi gure 1) to show a recent upturn after 15 years of fairly modest growth. Since 1994 there has been about 200 treatment plants established, representing a population equivalent of roughly fi ve million people. But in the past fi ve years after a small uptick in the cumulative installed capacity in 2009 there has been further acceleration with two large-scale Ceramic membranes: smashing prospects Oil's well: the produced water market shows promise with Veolia and LIqutec making notable inroads. Figure 1. Ceramic uptake has shown two growth bursts in recent years.