| Growing drinking water demands have strained water resources and increased interest in wastewater reclamation for potable reuse. This interest has brought increased attention to endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) as emerging water contaminants. The effect of EDCs, in particular natural steroid hormones, on humans is of particular interest in the study of wastewater reuse in advanced life support systems (e.g., space missions) because they are excreted in urine and have high endocrine-disrupting potencies.; Direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) and forward osmosis (FO) are currently being investigated for wastewater treatment in space. Retention of the natural steroid hormones estrone and 17beta-estradiol by these two processes was investigated. DCMD provided greater than 99.5% hormone rejection; DCMD also provided constant flux, greater than 99.9% urea and ammonia rejection, and high water recovery. Hormone rejection by FO ranged from 77 to 99% and was affected by experiment duration and feed solution chemistries. |
