Water pre-treatment and water treatment, what’s the difference? Pre-treatment is the process water must go through before the regular, routine treatment which water requires in order to maintain its high-quality standard.

If I have a regular water treatment programme in place, why is pre-treatment so important?

Primary Treatment is the first and basic important stage of the water treatment process.

The purpose of the pre-treatment is to remove suspended impurities, solids and most of the non-soluble solids physically, blocking the introduction of pollutants, which can cause damage to equipment and interfere with the water treatment process. The pre- treatment processes will also ensure that your water quality is not influenced by seasonal changes, extreme weather or industrial pollution.

It is essential to keep water heating and cooling as efficiently as possible. In addition to its environmental advantages, the pre-treatment process improves downstream efficiency and operations, reduces risk of water-borne illness, and in some cases can enable reclaiming and recycling of effluent-borne materials.

Providing a reliable, high-quality supply of treated water is critical to many processes and selecting the right pre-treatment technologies is very essential in the field of water treatment.


In order to ensure the treatment result and the steady operation of equipment, pre-treatment is important to the overall system of water purification.

Industrial reverse osmosis water treatment

Regular cleaning and maintenance will help keep everything running in optimal condition in an industrial reverse osmosis water treatment system but making sure that the wrong things are not being put through the system is what really counts in the long run.

Certain constituents can foul the system membranes, which reduce the water flow or cause damage to these membrane filters. It is important to ensure that any potential foulants are removed prior to contact with the membranes. To do so, proper pre-treatment steps are vital to the longevity and successful operation of the industrial reverse osmosis water treatment system.

A few of  possible pre-treatment processes for an RO systems is outlined below, they tend to cover a wide range of contaminants, but are not all encompassing. Proper pre-treatment solutions should be tailored to your own specific system:

  • Filtration (cartridge): for colloids, some organics and biological contaminants
  • Anti-scalant: for mineral scaling
  • Coagulation: for organics, colloids, and some minerals and biological pollutants

Aside from pre-treatment, it is important to monitor other factors (those specified by the RO system manufacturer and designer) to reduce the chance of fouling and scaling and keep the system working optimally. Several other operating conditions that affect performance are solution pH, solution temperature, and recovery rate.

If you want to keep your RO systems working efficiently for a long time, you need to make sure to take care of the membranes. Proper pre-treatment, maintenance, and operation will prevent system fouling and scaling and prolong the life of your membranes. This method ensures your industrial reverse osmosis water treatment system is providing you with the cleanest water possible.

Water pre-treatment benefits

Some key benefits provided by water pre-treatment include:

  • Extends the life of subsequent reverse osmosis (RO) plant membranes
  • Ensures that the water delivered to the RO system meets the required quality standard
  • Supports the delivery of a continuous and dependable water supply
  • Maximises the overall water processing plant lifecycle, thus reducing costs

Conclusion

The first step in the water treatment process is to ensure a pre-treatment plan is in place, this is to remove larger items of suspended materials, such as rubbish, solids and other debris.

The pre-treatment process will reduce the pollutant loads and protect all the subsequent steps in the treatment plant.

All of the impurities mentioned above, affects the quality of water: for the drinking water, excessive amount of impurities in water is harmful to the body; for the water for industrial usage, the substandard water affects quality of production, and causes great loss.

Get in touch with us today to speak to someone about an effective pre-treatment plan to meet each your unique needs.