Hybrid processes combine unit operations in one step to achieve an improved water or wastewater treatment. They overcome the different disadvantages of teh individual unit operations. Different approaches to remove micro-pollutants - especially persistent organics as well as phosphate residues - by hybrid processes consisting of ceramic flat sheet membrane filtration combined with flocculation or adsorption were investigated. The target of the studies was to improve the quality of treated sewage effluent (TSE) to protect the ecosystems from micro-pollutants such as pharmaceutical residues and/or forever chemicals like e.g. PFAS and allow a reuse of water. Therefore, ceramic flat sheet membrane filtration was combined with a flocculation process (cake layer filtration) to remove dissolved and colloidal organics from treated sewage effluent and to co-precipitate phosphate. By combining ceramic flat sheet membranes with powdered activated carbon adsorption (active cake layer filtration) persistent trace organics and forever chemicals were efficiently removed from surface water.