Growing demands for potable water have strained water resources and increased interest in wastewater reclamation for potable reuse. This interest has brought increased attention to endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) as emerging water contaminants. The effect of EDCs, and in particular natural steroid hormones, on humans is of heightened interest in the study of wastewater reuse in advanced life support systems (e.g., space missions) because they are excreted in urine and have high endocrine-disrupting potencies. Direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) and forward osmosis (FO) are being investigated for wastewater treatment in space. Retention of two natural steroid hormones, estrone and 17beta-estradiol, by these two processes was evaluated in the current investigation. DCMD provided greater than 99.5% hormone rejection; DCMD also provided constant flux, greater than 99.9% urea and ammonia rejection, and high water recovery. FO provided from 77 to 99% hormone rejection depending on experiment duration and feed solution chemistry.

No abstract

Herein, we study the feasibility of using nanocellulose (NC)-based composites with silver and platinum nanoparticles as additive materials to fabricate the support layer of thin film composite (TFC) membranes for water purification applications. In brief, the NC surface was chemically modified and then was decorated with silver and platinum nanoparticles, respectively, by chemical reduction. These metalized nanocellulose composites (MNC) were characterized by several techniques including: FTIR, XPS, TGA, XRD, and XANES to probe their integrity. Thereafter, we fabricated the MNC-TFC membranes and the support layer was modified to improve the membrane properties. The membranes were thoroughly characterized, and the performance was evaluated in forward osmosis (FO) mode with various feed solutions: nanopure water, urea, and wastewater samples. The fabricated membranes exhibited finger-like pore morphologies and varying pore sizes. Interestingly, higher water fluxes and solute rejection was obtained with the MNC-TFC membranes with wastewater samples. The overall approach of this work provides an effort to fabricated membranes with high water flux and enhanced selectivity.

No abstract

No abstract