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The Sonoma County Water Agency initiated a 3-month advanced wastewater treatment(AWT) pilot study in conjunction with the California Energy Commission to evaluate theeffectiveness of microfiltration (MF) and reverse-osmosis (RO) processes, in series,following tertiary wastewater filtration. Specifically, the study examined the extent of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCP) and endocrine disrupting compounds (EDC) contamination of tertiary-treated wastewater at the project site, and theremoval of these compounds through the two membrane processes.The water quality objectives for the microfiltration (MF)/reverse osmosis (RO) permeate water were to: meet primary andsecondary drinking water regulations for compliance with California Title 22 water reusestandards; remove representative PPCPs and EDCs to below detection limits; and,provide preliminary indications of plant performance for the specific wastewater tested, such as operating pressures, cleaning frequencies, and membrane fluxes. At thetime of this project, no standard protocols for sampling or laboratory analysis of PPCPsand EDCs existed, due to the evolving research in these areas. In this study, a variety ofanalytical methods were used to analyze for PPCPs and EDCs, including SPE, HPLC,LC/MS, LC/MS/MS, and LC/TOF/MS. Split samples were analyzed at three separatelaboratories to evaluate the range of variability between analytical methods.Initial characterization of the tertiary treated wastewater, prior to project start-up,identified the presence of a variety of PPCPs and EDCs. A suite of analytes was selectedfor this project to represent a broad range of the most prominent PPCPs and EDCs inwastewater, based on these initial results and scientific literature. Sampling wasconducted on the MF feed, MF filtrate, RO permeate, and RO concentrate. This paperpresents the AWT pilot set-up, analytes of interest, methods, and preliminary results from the study. Includes 2 references, tables, figure.

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Edition: Vol. - No. Published: 03/01/2005 Number of Pages: 7File Size: 1 file , 290 KB