The McIlvaine reports say that China is presently the largest purchaser of filtration and sedimentation equipment for new water treatment facilities, and there is an international participation in the Chinese market. Veolia is operating Chinese water treatment facilities servicing over 27 million people and Suez has 23 joint ventures in water/wastewater serving 17 municipalities.
Amongst the filter range in question, cross-flow membrane technologies are gaining market share at the expense of granular media filters. There is increasing concern about contaminated drinking water, and microfiltration can be efficient than a gravity media filter in removing harmful microbes. In some cases plants are going even further and installing the ultrafiltration membranes. When brackish water must be treated reverse osmosis can be a solution. Cartridge filters often tend to be used in drinking water systems where operation is only a few months per year, because the cartridges are not self cleaning. One alternative to cartridges is automatic back wash (ABW) filters, which are making inroads into municipal drinking water treatment. These filters were originally developed for drip irrigation but are proving to have benefits in drinking water treatment.
Dissolved air flotation provides small particle removal and takes up less space than clarifiers, and is also used, while hydrocyclones are very infrequently used and only for pre treatment when there are relatively large solids.