Prospects of Fibrous Ion Exchangers in Technology of Water Purification

The possibilities and advantages of fibrous ion exchangers in different water treatment processes have been discussed in comparison with their granular analogues. The main advantage of fibrous ion exchangers is a unique combination of an extremely high rate of ion exchange process (like microspheric resins) and a low hydrodynamic resistance of the filtering layer (like conventional industrial resins). This allows using fibrous ion exchangers in shallow filtering beds (1–3 cm) at high flow rates of the purified water. A high efficiency of fibrous ion exchangers is demonstrated on several practically important examples: water softening, water purification from trace amounts of led, copper, cadmium and zinc and nitrates. Data on the properties of commercially available fibrous ion exchangers of FIBAN® type are presented. Alternative technologies of water treatment processes are discussed in comparison with the conventional fixed bed ion exchange technology. Fibrous ion exchangers can be a good supplement to traditional ion exchangers, especially in wastewater purification because they allow treatment of large volumes of water in a short period of time.