Removal of pesticides and other micropollutants with cellulose-acetate, polyamide and ultra-low pressure reverse osmosis membranes

Pharmaceuticals and pesticides in reclaimed water: Efficiency assessment of a microfiltration–reverse osmosis (MF–RO) pilot plant

“…Most of the compounds were removed completely or at least to values below the method [49], whereas between 97-98% removal was achieved for MCPA and mecoprop with different RO membranes [50]. In summary, the RO filtration proved to pose a physical barrier for the majority of the pollutants, although most of them were still present in the RO permeate at low ng/L values or below LOQs, which are between 0.1 and 20 ng/L (see Table 2).…”

Optimization of cellulose acetate nanofiltration membranes for micropollutant removal via genetic algorithms and high throughput experimentation

“…Cellulose acetate (CA) is a common polymer used for NF and RO membranes. [2][3] Some are already commercially available since the 70s. [4] CA is cheap, presents relatively good resistance against chlorinated agents commonly used to disinfect water and is obtained from sustainable sources.…”

Membrane Treatment of Potable Water for Pesticides Removal

“…For these reasons scientists and all those involved in potable water production have turned their attention to the application of NF and ultra low-pressure RO membranes (ULPRO). Related R&D has resulted in the development of an advanced type of NF/ULPRO membranes, the so called thin film composite membranes (TFC or TFM) which have been successfully applied for the removal of pesticides in past 10-20 years (Hofman et al, 1997;Wittmann et al, 1998;Bonné et al, 2000;Cyna et al, 2002). TFC are multi-layer membranes comprising a very thin and dense active layer (of crosslinked aromatic polyamide) which is formed in situ on a porous support layer, usually made of polysulfone (Fig.3).…”

“…For example, a number of studies confirm that composite polyamide (PA) membranes exhibit far better rejection performance for several mixtures of micropollutants, including pesticides, compared to the cellulose acetate (CA) membranes (Chian et al, 1975;Hofman et al, 1997;Causserand et al, 2005). This behavior has been attributed to the higher polarity of CA membranes which is responsible for the poor rejection of the highly polar pesticides (Chian et al, 1975).…”

“…Because of this advances in membrane technology, RO has been gradually finding applications in the treatment of a variety of domestic, industrial, and hospital wastewaters. In the past three decades, the need for a complete assessment of the RO, and of the later developed NF process, regarding removal of pesticide residues from various aquatic matrices, led to an extensive research effort in many laboratories (Berg et al, 1997;Devitt et al, 1998a;Van der Bruggen et al, 1998Kiso et al, 2000Kiso et al, , 2002Košutić et al, 2002Košutić et al, , 2005Zhang et al, 2004;Causserand et al, 2005;Bhattacharya et al, 2006;Plakas et al, 2006;Sarkar et al, 2007;Plakas & Karabelas, 2008Ahmad et al, 2008aAhmad et al, , 2008bComerton et al, 2008;Caus et al, 2009;Benítez et al, 2009;Pang et al, 2010;Wang et al, 2010), pilot (Baier et al, 1987;Duranceau et al, 1992;Agbekodo et al, 1996;Berg et al, 1997;Hofman et al, 1997;Wittmann et al, 1998;Bonné et al, 2000;Boussahel et al, 2000Boussahel et al, , 2002Chen et al, 2004) as well as to industrial scale experiments (Agbekodo et al, 1996;Wittmann et al, 1998;Ventresque et al, 2000;Cyna et al, 2002). A fairly large number of commercially available NF/RO membranes have been tested for the removal of an even larger number of herbicides, insecticides, fungicides and miscellaneous pesticides from various water matrices.…”