Endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) that originate from household pharmaceuticals and personal care products are growing concerns due to their increasing occurrence in surface and ground water around the world. Conventional water treatment technologies have been proven ineffective against these micro-pollutants. Laboratory and pilot-scale studies have shown that ozone degradation and membrane filtration are two promising technologies for treating EDCs. However, membrane fouling by organic matters and low minerization rate of ozone degradation limit their development in water treatment applications....[ Read more ]

Endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) that originate from household pharmaceuticals and personal care products are growing concerns due to their increasing occurrence in surface and ground water around the world. Conventional water treatment technologies have been proven ineffective against these micro-pollutants. Laboratory and pilot-scale studies have shown that ozone degradation and membrane filtration are two promising technologies for treating EDCs. However, membrane fouling by organic matters and low minerization rate of ozone degradation limit their development in water treatment applications.

In this study, an advanced ozone membrane reactor that synergistically combines the two technologies was applied to treat EDCs. In the ozone membrane reactor, a porous stainless steel membrane with 0.2 μm pore size was used to generate ozone micro-bubbles for efficient EDCs and TOC degradations, while a 1.5 μm thick ZSM-5 zeolite membrane was used to concentrate EDCs and produce clean permeate simultaneously. Potassium hydrogen phthalate (KHP), caffeine (CF), diclofenac sodium (DFS) and carbamazepine (CBZ) were selected as target compounds to represent phthalates and pharmaceutical EDCs.

Experiment and modeling were carried out to study the advanced ozone membrane reactor. Experiment was first conducted and used to validate the mathematical model. The model was then applied to investigate the effect of different operating parameters on the EDC and TOC removal efficiencies of the reactor.