Purification of lake water using a PES hollow fiber membrane

Abstract Water scarcity combined with increasing populations will create a massive problem of obtaining clean water sources in the future. In this research, a newly developed polyethersulfone (PES) hollow fiber membrane from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) is used in water purification experiments using raw water samples obtained from Varsity Lake of the University of Malaya (UM) and a lake in Taman Jaya. The raw water samples undergo water quality characteristics tests to determine their class of water quality based on national water quality standards. Both raw water samples have been characterized and belong to class II of water quality. Subsequently, both raw water samples are used in water purification experiments with two types of filtration configuration, cross-flow and dead-end. Results show that water purification using the PES hollow fiber membrane can obtain water quality of class I for both samples. However, the presence of Escherichia coli can still be detected in both purified water samples. From the results obtained, the fabricated PES membrane is able to filter raw water samples of WQI Class II to WQI Class I quality and adhere to drinking water standards, and the dead-end filtration configuration provides the best filtration performance.