Wastewater Treatment for Pharmaceutics

The factors which have been proven to influence the separation of medication from aqueous solutions are closely related to the nature of the membrane and its type (polymer used, type of membrane process, if the membrane is a composite or not), as much as the type of the solution used for the separation (solution components, concentration, size of the species for separating). Further on in this chapter some examples will be presented which will treat and explain each of these parameters. 

The influence of the chemical parameters over the solution was also studied for the following antibiotics cephalexin, tetracycline, acetaminophen, indomethacin and amoxicillin, using two commercial nanofiltration membranes, SR-2 and SR-3 (Koch, USA) [31]. Thus, the highest rejection was reached for tetracycline (75-90% for the SR2 membrane and 95-100% for the SR3 membrane), while the lowest rejection was obtained for acetaminophen (32-36% for SR2 and 52-59% for SR3) for solutions prepared in ultrapure water. Along with the rise in pH of the acetaminophen solution, from 6 to 9, a rise was observed in the rejection for the SR3 membrane (from 89% to 

4 Controlled Drug Delivery Devices Based on Membrane Materials 

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