title: Occurrence of N-nitrosodimethylamine precursors in wastewater treatment plant effluent and their fate during ultrafiltration-reverse osmosis membrane treatment.
abstract: The formation of N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) is of major concern among wastewater recycling utilities practicing disinfection with chloramines. The NDMA formation potential (FP) test is a simple and straightforward method to evaluate NDMA precursor concentrations in waters. In this paper we show the NDMA FP results of a range of tertiary wastewater treatment plants that are also the source for production of recycled water using an Ultrafiltration - Reverse Osmosis (UF-RO) membrane process. The results indicate that the NDMA FP of different source waters range from 350 to 1020±20 ng/L. The fate of these NDMA precursors was also studied across the different stages of two Advanced Water Treatment Plants (AWTP) producing recycled water. These results show that more than 98.5±0.5% of NDMA precursors are effectively removed by the Reverse Osmosis (RO) membranes used at the AWTPs. This drastically reduces any potential for re-formation of NDMA after the RO stage even if chloramines may be present (or added) there.
authors.affiliation: The University of Queensland, Advanced Water Management Centre (AWMC), QLD 4072, Australia. m.farre@awmc.uq.edu.au
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Farré
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Keller
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Holling
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Poussade
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Gernjak
mesh_terms: D004128:Dimethylnitrosamine / Q000032:analysis* / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D008567:Membranes, Artificial; D009995:Osmosis; D014462:Ultrafiltration / Q000379:methods*; D014865:Waste Disposal, Fluid / Q000379:methods*; D018508:Water Purification / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D008567:Membranes, Artificial; D004128:Dimethylnitrosamine