German start-up company ItN Nanovation AG, which makes nanofiltration ceramic products for the water industry, announced on 15 March 2011 an order in Saudi Arabia for its CFM Systems® nanoceramic-based filtration system for water purification.
The CFM filter units are used to pretreat water from deep wells prior to reverse osmosis (RO). The company says that tests have shown that prefiltration with its units provides significant advantages over conventional polymer-based hollow-fiber membranes and sand-based filtration, even at high temperatures and high iron and manganese concentrations in the water being treated.
The filter units also last considerably longer than conventional polymer membranes for prefiltration. In addition, their use extends the operating life of the downstream RO membranes and ultimately serves to improve the quality of drinking water.
A significant additional advantage is that drinking water throughput is increased by some 20%.