Adsorption of hydrophobic compounds onto NF/RO membranes: an artifact leading to overestimation of rejection

This study addresses the adsorption of hydrophobic compounds at low concentration (∼100 ppb) onto NF/RO membranes. In this study, three surrogate compounds and three NF/RO membranes were tested under cross-flow conditions. Experimental results showed that the adsorption of hydrophobic compounds was significant for neutral compounds and ionizable compounds when electrostatically neutral. Also, operating conditions such as the permeate flow rate (flux) had a significant effect on the degree of compound adsorption. A comparison of the adsorption observed in dynamic filtration tests with that in static batch adsorption tests suggests that more adsorption sites are accessible for molecules during membrane filtration due to the pressurized advective flow. It was observed that the concentration of the tested compounds changed during filtration tests due to adsorption. Therefore, an accurate evaluation of a given membrane in terms of the rejection of a hydrophobic compound is not possible until saturation of the membrane with the compound of interest is accomplished. The experimental results demonstrated that a relatively large amount of the feed water needed to be filtered to reach saturation conditions.