Evaluation of membrane bioreactor on removal of pharmaceutical micropollutants: a review

Municipal wastewater reclamation and reuse has become an important solution in many places around the world to deal with water scarcity problems. Among the available treatment approaches, membrane bioreactor (MBR) has a great potential to become a key element in municipal wastewater reclamation and reuse schemes due to its significantly higher treated effluent quality as compared to the conventional activated sludge process. As great concerns have been raised to some emerging trace pollutants found in aquatic environment in the last decade, notably the pharmaceuticals, removal of pharmaceutical micropollutants by MBR or MBR-related processes should be evaluated to further understand the status of MBR in different wastewater treatment and reuse schemes. This paper gives an overview on removal of pharmaceutical micropollutants by MBR or MBR-related processes, such as activated carbon-assisted MBR and combined membrane bioreactor and reverse osmosis process.