Treatment of Car Wash Wastewater by UF Membranes

The existence of car wash service facilitates car owners to remove dirt and grime from their vehicles. However, the dirt washed off vehicles as well as the cleaning materials themselves may be harmful to the environment if they are not properly managed and discharged. Many technologies have been proposed to treat car wash wastewater such as coagulation flocculation, tricking filter and flocculation-flotation. Nevertheless, these technologies have low efficiency to eliminate oil and small organic compounds. Ultrafiltration (UF) membranes were used in this study to treat car wash wastewater. This study investigated the performance of UF membranes under various pressures to remove COD, oil and grease, and also turbidity from car wash waste water. The membrane performance was examined by investigation of permeate flux and membrane rejection. The results meet the standard of environmental regulation and it is possible to be reused. The highest rejection was shown by PES10 (polyethersulfone 10 kDa) in 1 bar operation with complete rejection for both turbidity and oil and grace and 95% rejection for COD.