In Situ Modification of Reverse Osmosis Membrane Elements for Enhanced Removal of Multiple Micropollutants

Katie Baransi-Karkaby,Viatcheslav Freger,Maria Bass

doi:10.3390/membranes9020028

Katie Baransi-Karkaby, Viatcheslav Freger + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes9020028

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Journal: Membranes	Publication Date: Feb 13, 2019
Citations: 42	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Technion – Israel Institute of Technology

Abstract

Reverse osmosis (RO) membranes are widely used for desalination and water treatment. However, they insufficiently reject some small uncharged micropollutants, such as certain endocrine-disrupting, pharmaceutically active compounds and boric acid, increasingly present in water sources and wastewater. This study examines the feasibility of improving rejection of multiple micropollutants in commercial low-pressure RO membrane elements using concentration polarization- and surfactant-enhanced surface polymerization. Low-pressure membrane elements modified by grafting poly(glycidyl methacrylate) showed enhanced rejection of all tested solutes (model organic micropollutants, boric acid, and NaCl), with permeability somewhat reduced, but comparable with commercial brackish water RO membranes. The study demonstrates the potential and up-scalability of grafting as an in situ method for improving removal of various classes of organic and inorganic micropollutants and tuning performance in RO and other dense composite membranes for water purification.

Highlights

Pharmaceutically active compounds (PhACs), in sewage treatment plant effluents emerged as an issue of growing concern over recent years [1,2,3,4,5,6]
The results indicate that the membrane surface was successfully and uniformly modified over the entire element, while contact angle data showed a significant increase in surface hydrophobicity
The presented results demonstrate the feasibility of improving rejection of a wide variety of micropollutants in commercial reverse osmosis (RO) membrane elements by in situ modification

Summary

Introduction

The presence of organic micropollutants, in particular, endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDCs) and pharmaceutically active compounds (PhACs), in sewage treatment plant effluents emerged as an issue of growing concern over recent years [1,2,3,4,5,6]. This is an extremely diverse group of substances that include industrial chemicals, agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, hormones, etc.

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