Edith Nwakaego Okey, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi
STUDY BACKGROUND
Emerging pollutants (Eps) are various chemicals that are not currently regulated but have the potential to enter the environment and have known or suspected negative impacts on the ecosystem and human health (Geissen et al., 2015). These pollutants can be pharmaceuticals hormones and steroids, personal care products, surfactants, agrochemicals, microplastics, among others (Ramírez-Malule et al., 2020).
There is a worldwide concern about the inability of traditional WWTPs to completely remove pharmaceutical pollutants from wastewater, as highlighted by early research (Jelic et al., 2011; Kosma, Lambropoulou, and Albanis, 2014; Mceneff, Schmidt, and Quinn, 2014; Casas et al., 2015; Wang and Wang, 2016; Madikizela and Chimuka, 2017; Shraim et al., 2017; Stefanakis, 2017; Pereira et al., 2020).
To address this inadequacy in conventional WWTPs and prevent the release of these compounds into the environment to protect human health and the ecosystem , a number of advanced treatment technologies have been developed and evaluated (Chonova, 2017; del Lamo et al., 2020; Castillo et al., 2020). Ozone/advanced oxidation processes (AOPs), activated carbon filtration, and membrane bioreactors are a few of the systems that have been examined (Castillo et al., 2020; Ajo et al., 2018; Souza et al., 2018).
Although these systems produce high removal efficiencies, there are differences based on the pollutants and treatment methods. Furthermore, the construction and operation of such treatment methods are difficult and expensive to operate (Chonova, 2017; Castillo et al.,2020).
It has become imperative to develop more efficient and cost-effective treatment technologies that can totally remove these contaminants from wastewater using readily accessible, affordable, and easy-to-assessment raw materials from the local area (Castillo et al., 2020).
Clay can be easily moulded into any shape that it retains when dry. Naturally occurring clays are widely used for contaminant remediation due to their easy availability, high adsorption capacities, high porosity, high cation exchange
capacity, and high specific surface area (Chaari et al., 2020).
Worldwide, clay has been used by man from time immemorial for both industrial and domestic applications. Today, clay is still very useful in the ceramics industry for processing several forms of ceramic materials (Yaya et al., 2017). The particular application of clay depends on its mineralogical, physical, and chemical properties (Momade and Gawu, 2009; Asamoah et al., 2018).
Over the years, ceramic filters have been employed as an alternate technique of treating wastewater, stormwater, and drinking water (Wei, 2015; Tshishonga and Gumbo, 2017; Nair and Mophinkani, 2018; Akosile et al., 2020).
In general, size exclusion, membrane adsorption, and charge repulsion are typically used in membrane processes to retain micropollutants. These removal processes are substantially influenced by various variables, including the
characteristics of the membrane, the operating conditions and the characteristics of the particular micropollutant (Luo et al., 2014).
OBJECTIVE
The main objective of this study is to investigate the suitability of the fabricated ceramic membrane filter (CMF) for pharmaceutical removal.
CONCLUSIONS
The present study indicated that CMF experiments operated at a smaller flow rate combined with increased SRT achieved the best performance among the suited compounds.
Considering the high removal rate of other pharmaceuticals under normal wastewater conditions, the CMF can be considered as an efficient and economical treatment method and could be applied in several related industries.
The inability of the developed CMF to remove diclofenac and ibuprofen under normal wastewater conditions makes it easier for future researchers in the modification of the CMF with the objective of removing diclofenac and ibuprofen to an acceptable level.
18 January, 2023, 17:05 CET)