Applications of ultrafiltration, nanofiltration, and reverse osmosis in pharmaceutical wastewater treatment

Nowadays, pharmaceutical industries occupy a central position in accommodating the wastewater effluents. These wastewater effluents are frequently impossible to remove using traditional wastewater treatment approaches due to their complex chemical composition, size, concentration of organic contaminants, volume load, salinity, and biological toxicity. Pharmaceutical active compounds (PhACs) remain unchanged and accentuate wastewater effluents, which is a limitation in the traditional wastewater treatment approaches. Nanotechnologies have emerged as the preferred way to treat the wastewater for different purposes, including industrial, agricultural, and domestic applications. Membrane technologies, including ultrafiltration (UF), nanofiltration (NF), and reverse osmosis (ROs), are few promising approaches in the wastewater treatment. Although NF proceeds on the spire, it consumes less energy and demonstrate a higher rejection rate as compared to RO and UF, respectively. Some of the important the membrane features, like feed characteristics, and operating conditions completely underlie the efficiency of these filtration technologies. Present book chapter covers the trending membrane-based approaches, their applications, and recommendations for further investigations pertaining to their efficacy utility and future improvements.