Removal of pesticide residues in water using the nanofiltration process

Membrane Treatment of Potable Water for Pesticides Removal

“…On the other hand, the retention of small pesticide molecules by wider pore membranes can be influenced not only by the sieving parameters (pesticide and membrane pore size) but also by the physicochemical interactions taking place between the pesticides and the membrane surfaces. For example, in pilot studies (Boussahel et al, 2000;, among the two membranes tested, Desal DK membranes achieved the best retention results for all pesticides and water matrices tested due to their lower MWCO value (150-300Da) compared to NF200 (300Da) membranes. The low MWCO of Desal DK membranes provided an explanation for the similar percentage removal for all pesticides (except from the polar diuron), something that was not observed in the case of NF200 membranes, for which the retention capacity was found to be dependent both on the size and the polarity of the pesticide molecules (Boussahel et al, 2000).…”

“…For example, in pilot studies (Boussahel et al, 2000;, among the two membranes tested, Desal DK membranes achieved the best retention results for all pesticides and water matrices tested due to their lower MWCO value (150-300Da) compared to NF200 (300Da) membranes. The low MWCO of Desal DK membranes provided an explanation for the similar percentage removal for all pesticides (except from the polar diuron), something that was not observed in the case of NF200 membranes, for which the retention capacity was found to be dependent both on the size and the polarity of the pesticide molecules (Boussahel et al, 2000). In a recent work (Zhang et al, 2004), the retention of two triazine herbicides (atrazine and simazine) by four nanofiltration membranes was also related to their MWCO.…”

“…A number of studies performed with either NF/RO membranes (Agbekodo et al, 1996;Berg et al, 1997;Devitt et al, 1998a;Boussahel et al, 2000;Zhang et al, 2004) or dialysis membranes (Devitt & Wiesner, 1998b;Dalton et al, 2005) have shown that the retention of pesticides is significantly influenced by the presence of natural organic matter (NOM) in water. This fact is of considerable importance since a large percentage of pesticide residues is present in surface and ground waters together with organic matter; i.e.…”

“…Because of this advances in membrane technology, RO has been gradually finding applications in the treatment of a variety of domestic, industrial, and hospital wastewaters. In the past three decades, the need for a complete assessment of the RO, and of the later developed NF process, regarding removal of pesticide residues from various aquatic matrices, led to an extensive research effort in many laboratories (Berg et al, 1997;Devitt et al, 1998a;Van der Bruggen et al, 1998Kiso et al, 2000Kiso et al, , 2002Košutić et al, 2002Košutić et al, , 2005Zhang et al, 2004;Causserand et al, 2005;Bhattacharya et al, 2006;Plakas et al, 2006;Sarkar et al, 2007;Plakas & Karabelas, 2008Ahmad et al, 2008aAhmad et al, , 2008bComerton et al, 2008;Caus et al, 2009;Benítez et al, 2009;Pang et al, 2010;Wang et al, 2010), pilot (Baier et al, 1987;Duranceau et al, 1992;Agbekodo et al, 1996;Berg et al, 1997;Hofman et al, 1997;Wittmann et al, 1998;Bonné et al, 2000;Boussahel et al, 2000Boussahel et al, , 2002Chen et al, 2004) as well as to industrial scale experiments (Agbekodo et al, 1996;Wittmann et al, 1998;Ventresque et al, 2000;Cyna et al, 2002). A fairly large number of commercially available NF/RO membranes have been tested for the removal of an even larger number of herbicides, insecticides, fungicides and miscellaneous pesticides from various water matrices.…”

Alleviation of Pesticide Residue in Surface Water

“…Some of the past efforts made in removing pesticide residues in water include the use of clay [3] [5], activated carbon [6] [7] and ozonization [6]. Use of clay is limited by its adsorption capacity due to its shrink-swell behavior and zeolites are free of such flaws [8].…”