TY - JOUR
T1 - In situ modification of reverse osmosis membrane elements for enhanced removal of multiple micropollutants
AU - Baransi-Karkaby, Katie
AU - Bass, Maria
AU - Freger, Viatcheslav
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding: This work was supported by the Israel Water Authority grant No 4500687020, and partly by the United States–Israel Binational Agricultural Research and Development Fund (BARD), grant No US-4654-13. K.B.-K. acknowledges scholarships by the Israel Ministry of Science Technology and Space for the Israeli Arab Ph.D. students and the Rieger Foundation Jewish National Fund for the fellowship in Environmental Studies.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2019/2/1
Y1 - 2019/2/1
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - Boron removal
KW - In situ membrane modification
KW - Micropollutant removal
KW - Reverse osmosis
KW - Spiral wound elements
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85062376152&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/membranes9020028
DO - 10.3390/membranes9020028
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85062376152
VL - 9
JO - Membranes
JF - Membranes
SN - 2077-0375
IS - 2
M1 - 28
ER -