This study was performed to investigate the effects of flux and pre-treatment on the
operation performance of a microfiltration drinking water treatment system through a
pilot scale operation using a lake water as a raw water. The pilot plant had a capacity
of 500 /day with a five membrane modules and was operated for 1 year to carry out the
experiments for the variation of filtration flux, physical cleaning conditions and pre-
treatment conditions. Also, an experiment was performed when raw water with high
turbidity flowed into the system as well as pretreated with powdered activated carbon
(PAC). When the MF system was operated with filtration flux of 2 / ·day, it could not
be operated more than 500 hours due to the continuous TMP (Trans-membrane pressure)
increase. In case of filtration flux of 1 / ·day, the system could be operated
continuously for more than 1300 hours without the increase in the TMP. During this
experimentation period, raw water with high turbidity (above 400NTU)was fed into the
membrane system. Therefore, the TMP increased by approximately 4.90kPa compared to the
TMP for the previous raw water with lower turbidity. In the case of the PAC pretreated
membrane filtration process, the TMP tended to increase slightly. However, The TMP was
reduced by performing coagulation and mixing after injecting PAC.