Removal of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) and environmental estrogens (EEs) from water using positively charged hollow fiber nanofiltration membrane.

Nanofiltration (NF) membranes show great potential for advanced water treatment, especially for trace organic pollutant removal. The removal efficiency of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) and environmental estrogenic hormones (EEHs) by positively charged hollow fiber NF membranes (PEI-NF) were evaluated. The separation properties were evaluated by changing the operating pressure, temperature, ionic strength, and cation species. A relationship between the physicochemical characteristics of the pharmaceuticals and the NF membrane retention behavior was established. The results showed that the rejection rates of the PEI-NF membrane for the selected PPCPs and EEHs ranged from 81 to ~ 91.26%. For positively (negatively) charged pharmaceutical molecules, the electrostatic repulsion (attraction) effect and steric hindrance were the dominant rejection mechanisms of the PEI-NF membrane. For neutral pharmaceutical molecules, in addition to the size sieving effect, the hydration-induced size increase of hydrophilic substances improved the rejection rates. Both the molecular structure and diffusion coefficient of pharmaceutical molecules influenced their rejection by the PEI-NF membrane to a certain extent. Moreover, the PEI-NF membrane showed a high removal effect for PPCPs and EEHs in water samples from actual tap water plants.

A novel air-assisted liquid-liquid microextraction based on in-situ phase separation for the HPLC determination of bisphenols migration from disposable lunch boxes to contacting water.

In this study, a novel air-assisted liquid-liquid microextraction (AALLME) method was developed for the HPLC determination of bisphenols migration from disposable plastic lunch box to contacting water. The AALLME was carried out in commercially-available medical plastic syringes with low-density extraction solvent (n-octanol), and the reaction of NaHCO3 and HCl was introduced to simultaneously induce the in-situ phase separation and salt effect. After the AALLME processes, the upper organic phase was pushed into the end of syringes (narrow tube) by moving the piston so that it could be readily collected for the HPLC analysis. The factors including the type and volume of extraction solvent, NaHCO3 addition and extraction cycles were optimized. Under the optimal conditions, the limits of detection (LODs) for target bisphenols were evaluated to be 0.2-0.7 µg L-1, and good linearities with correlation coefficients higher than 0.9955 were obtained. The recoveries for target bisphenols ranged from 80% to 106%, with the relative standard deviations (RSDs) of 4.4-14.1%. The proposed method was successfully applied to investigate the migration of bisphenols from the disposable plastic lunch boxes to the contacting water, revealing that compared to the conventional water-bath heating, the microwave heating could induce the significant migration of bisphenols in a much shorter time.