Application of membrane techniques to water purification. Removal of phthalates

Driving force membrane processes seem to be most useful for water treatment. Reverse osmosis, nanofiltration and ultrafiltration have been applied to phthalate removal from water. In the experiment three membranes RO-DS3SE were tested for reverse osmosis, membrane NF-DS5DK for nanofiltration and UF-DSGM for ultrafiltration, all of them from Osmonics, Inc. (USA). All membranes were tested under specified conditions (for RO, NF - 2.0 MPa, UF - 0.3 MPa) and they showed a high degree of phthalate removal from water - from 97.6% to almost 99.9%. Microextraction (solid phase extraction, SPME with CV/DVB-carbowax/divinylobenzene phase) was used for phthalate extraction from the aquatic matrix, while gas chromatography (GC) with FID detector was used for their quantitative-qualitative monitoring.