The Importance of Reverse Osmosis in Removal of Notification Level Chemicals andSelected Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals - A Pilot Study

摘要

Information regarding rejection capabilities of RO to “DHS notification level chemicals” andrnEDCs is very limited. In this study, a pilot scale MF/RO receiving secondary treated wastewaterrneffluent from Big Bear Area Regional Water Agency (BBARWA) WWTP was tested torndetermine the rejection capabilities of the RO membranes for specific non-regulated compoundsrnand CDHS specified EDCs. Due to domestic nature of BBARWA wastewater and the degree ofrnsecondary treatment provided, with the exception of boron and chlorate, all DHS notificationrnlevel compounds were below their detection limits in the RO feed water. For the detectedrncompounds, the RO exhibited 94 percent rejection capability to chlorate while rejecting boronrnonly 44 percent. EDC testing results have shown that with the exception of 4-methyl phenol, thernRO exhibited very good rejections to the tested EDCs. In this study a very good correlationrnbetween RO rejection and molecular size, polarity and solubility of the compounds. On the otherrnhand, no good correlation between RO rejection and octanol water partition coefficient (Kow) ofrncompounds was found thereby suggesting that Kow alone is not sufficient to describe rejectionrnof non-polar compounds by the RO membranes.