(621g) Catalytic Membrane Process for Effective Treatment of Endocrine Disrupting Compounds in Water

Title: Catalytic membrane process for effective treatment of endocrine disrupting compounds in water.

Authors: Hyun Kyung KIM¹, Tiphaine CORBET², King Lun YEUNG ^2,3

Institutions:

¹ Department of Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China.

² Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China.

³ Division of Environment, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China.

Abstract Body:

            The large number of chemical compounds found in common household products include many known and suspected endocrine disruptors. It is particularly alarming that in recent years there is increasing report of their occurrence in source water as it has been proven that conventional water treatment process is ineffective in treating these compounds. This work reports the use a catalytic membrane process that employ membranes as distributor, contactor and separator to achieve synergistic performance for the removal and abatement of EDCs.  A stainless steel membrane distributor delivers ozone directly to the membrane contactor nestled within the distributor, where it reacts to convert the EDCs. The contactor is coated with an adsorbent and catalyst to trap the EDCs and hasten its conversion. A membrane separation layer on the inner surface of the membrane contactor allows the continuous production of clean water. It is possible to achieve complete conversions of reference EDCs including diclofenac sodium, caffeine and phthalates at a short residence time of 5 min with better than 70 % removal of total organic content.