With economic and social development, water pollution has intensified, and the quality of water sources has deteriorated, leading to an increase in pollutants, especially organic pollutants, in water. Traditional drinking water treatment methods are only effective against common organic pollutants and are ineffective at removing parasites, viruses, bacteria, algae, and other aquatic organisms. Furthermore, disinfection processes often produce byproducts.
Next-generation drinking water purification processes should improve treatment efficiency and optimize results while emphasizing the absence of toxic substances during the process. They should also improve resource and energy utilization, reduce pollution load, and improve environmental quality. Ultrafiltration technology meets the requirements of next-generation drinking water purification processes, removing parasites, viruses, bacteria, algae, and other aquatic organisms from drinking water, ensuring drinking water safety. It is widely used in urban water plants in developed countries such as the United States and Japan.
While ultrafiltration membranes can retain most suspended solids and colloids in water, they cannot remove dissolved small molecules, hindering the application of ultrafiltration technology in drinking water treatment. Currently (2018), numerous studies by scholars both domestically and internationally have found that a combined system of powdered activated carbon (PAC) and ultrafiltration can convert dissolved small molecule pollutants into particulate matter, which can then be removed by the ultrafiltration process.