AWWA WQTC65968

Research to-date has reported the presence of endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs), pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) usually at sub µg/L concentrations mostly in surface water and to a lesser degree in ground and drinking water (Richardson and Ternes, 2005). Since limited knowledge is available on health effects related to the consumption of drinking water containing trace amounts of EDCs/PPCPs, removal of these compounds during drinking water production is desirable. Pressure driven membrane processes such as nanofiltration (NF) and reverse osmosis (RO) may be promising techniques for the removal of these emerging micropollutants. Removal mechanisms of these micropollutants by nanofiltration include the perspective of interaction between the compound and the membrane. The study distinguishes between three compound-membrane interactions; namely size exclusion, electrostatic repulsion and adsorption. These interactions are determined by compound properties (molecular weight/size, charge, hydrophobicity) and membrane properties (MWCO (molecular weight cut-off)/pore size, surface charge, hydrophobicity). Operational problems such as fouling (decrease in membrane flux over time) has hampered the acceptance of RO and NF technologies (Kaiya et al., 1996). Membrane fouling characteristics were described as pore blockage, pore restriction and cake formation. Recent studies (Xu et al. 2006 ; Plakas et al. 2006 ; Agenson et al. 2007) have reported that membrane fouling can significantly affect the separation behavior of organic micropollutants, resulting in either an increase or decrease in retention as compared to a clean membrane. These studies have focused on fouling caused by secondary effluents, humic substances and activated sludge or landfill leachate. To our knowledge few, if any, studies have focused on the impact of fouling by surface waters on the removal of micropollutants. The objective of this study was to simultaneously evaluate the fouling potential and removal performance of thin film composite nanofiltration membranes. Experiments were conducted in ultrapure water and surface water spiked with two pharmaceutical active compounds, namely naproxen and carbamazepine. Includes 7 references, table, figures.