Factors affecting the rejection of organic solutes during NF/RO treatment—a literature review

Pharmaceuticals and personal care products in effluent matrices: A survey of transformation and removal during wastewater treatment and implications for wastewater management

“…Critical parameters include the molecular weight and size, acid dissociation constant (pK a ), octanol-water partitioning coefficient (K ow ), polarity and aqueous diffusion coefficient. 103,107 For example, the retention of antibiotics from the 1968 | J. Environ. Monit., 2010, 12, This journal is ª The Royal Society of Chemistry 2010…”

Treatment options for wastewater effluents from pharmaceutical companies

“…A possible reason for this is short circuiting of the membrane or the failure of membrane support media. (Bellona et al, 2004). Radjenovic et al (2007) investigated the removal of a range of pharmaceuticals including hydrochlorothiazide, ketoprofen, diclofenac, propyphenazone and carbamazepine using NF and RO technologies for a fullscale drinking water treatment plant, with high rejection percentages (>85 %) for all the pharmaceuticals reported.…”

“…In another study with RO membranes the retention of negatively charged diclofenac was 95 % (Kimura et al, 2003). Some studies reported higher removal efficiencies of polar and charged compounds in NF/RO processes due to interactions with membrane surfaces (Ozaki and Li, 2002;Bellona et al, 2004;Amy et al, 2005;Braeken et al, 2005). Though both NF and RO treatment shows potential as an efficient method for removing pharmaceuticals from the wastewater, the disposal of the sludge which could contain the pollutant in a more concentrated form remains.…”

Removal of Emerging Contaminants for Water Reuse by Membrane Technology

“…The effect of compound size is particularly noticeable when the rejection of neutral TrOCs are compared [12]. Separation by size exclusion occurs by a sieving mechanism, in which large TrOCs are blocked and smaller TrOCs readily diffuse through the membrane.…”

“…For a nonionisable compound Log D and Log D are the same. In NF/RO systems, the transition of compounds from hydrophobic to hydrophilic typically occurs at a Log D (or Log Kow) value in between 2 and 3 [12,31]. Consequently, TrOCs with a Log D above 3 are classified as hydrophobic and may adsorb on the membrane surface due to hydrophobic interactions.…”