Pharmaceutically active compounds (PhACs) and endocrine disrupting
substances (EDS) have emerged as compounds of concern, particularly when
present in raw water for drinking water production. Membrane filtration and
especially nanofiltration (NF) is a promising technique for the removal of these
emerging contaminants from surface water. In this study biological filtration is
used as pretreatment for ultrafiltration (UF) and NF, and each filtration process
is studied alone and in combination with biological filtration. The overall goals are
twofold, to study the removal of selected contaminants and to assess
membrane fouling at the same time. Compounds investigated are the herbicide
atrazine, the anti-epileptic carbamazepine, the insect repellent DEET, the anti-inflammatories
ibuprofen and naproxen, and the detergent degradation byproduct
nonylphenol. Biological filtration prior to membrane filtration has the potential to
remove or minimize the foulant materials but may also be capable of removing
selected contaminants. Surface water from a local river was passed through a
roughing filter prior to being used in these experiments. Initial results were mainly
as expected, namely low removals of contaminants with UF and high removals
with NF. Biological filtration showed some contaminant removal but results need
to be confirmed. Even with a preceding roughing filter NF can not be operated for
any length of time due to severe fouling thus making pretreatment necessary.
Preliminary experiments showed a reduction in fouling of the NF unit when
employing biofiltration. UF showed good turbidity removal and some TOC
removal. Includes 14 references, tables, figures.
| Edition : | Vol. - No. |
| File Size : | 1
file
, 490 KB |
| Note : | This product is unavailable in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus |
| Number of Pages : | 14 |
| Published : | 03/01/2007 |
