Application of membrane technology in the treatment and analysis of triazine pesticides in water

Abstract

The quality of consumable water is decreasing due to increasing water pollution caused by the production and use of human-made chemicals. A significant part of these chemicals are pesticides from the class of triazines since they are widely used in agriculture as herbicides. Water treatment techniques mainly rely on separation science, where the membrane technology has been identified as the most useful. Membrane processes used in water treatment are microfiltration, ultrafiltration, nanofiltration and reverse osmosis. In general, the pollutant retention/rejection by membranes depends on the physicochemical properties of the membrane i.e. membrane material, porosity, pore size and on the properties of the pollutant molecule i.e. size, length, width, molecular weight, hydrophobicity or dipole moment. The pollutant retention also depends on the feed-water composition (organic matter and salt presence, solute concentration, water pH). Thus, effective water treatment depends on the selection of an appropriate type of membrane for a particular type of pollutants. Membrane technology is also significant because it is used in polluted water analysis, more precise as a part of a liquid-phase or solid-phase microextraction. Among several developed membrane-based microextraction methods, in triazine polluted water analysis common are membrane-protected solid-phase microextraction and hollow-fiber liquid-phase microextraction. In this field, researchers tend to achieve membrane-pollutant compatibility through the synthesis of polymeric materials with molecular recognition properties i.e. through a technology called molecular imprinting.