Desalination 250 (2010) 833–839

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Desalination
j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s ev i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / d e s a l

Performances of RO and NF processes for wastewater reuse: Tertiary treatment after

a conventional activated sludge or a membrane bioreactor☆
Matthieu Jacob a,b,c,⁎, Christelle Guigui a,b,c, Corinne Cabassud a,b,c, Hélène Darras d,
Gwenaelle Lavison e, Laurent Moulin e
a
Université de Toulouse; INSA, UPS, INP; LISBP, 135 Avenue de Rangueil, F-31077 Toulouse, France
b
INRA, UMR792 Ingénierie des Systèmes Biologiques et des Procédés, F-31400 Toulouse, France
c
CNRS, UMR5504, F-31400 Toulouse, France
d
SAUR R&D, Les Cyclades, 1, rue Antoine Lavoisier, 78064 Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, France
e
CRECEP, 144, 156 avenue Paul Vaillant Couturier, 75014 Paris, France

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Wastewater reclamation requires processes and technologies having the ability to reduce the presence of
Accepted 8 November 2008 micropollutants which are not wholly treated in conventional WWTP. Due to the complexity of membrane–
Available online 12 October 2009 solute interactions and the diversity of secondary treatment effluent (STE) matrices, deeper investigations
are required to identify the major foulant species and more specifically their behaviour at high concentration
Keywords:
in real waters. This study investigates the rejection and fouling potential of nanofiltration (NF) and low-
Domestic wastewater reuse
Nanofiltration
pressure reverse osmosis (RO) membranes with two STEs sampled from i) a conventional activated sludge
Reverse osmosis process coupled with ultrafiltration (CAS-UF) and from ii) a membrane bioreactor MBR (AquaRM®, SAUR
Membrane fouling (France)). Whatever the origin of the effluent, RO seems to be the best solution to prevent pollution of
Micropollutant retention tertiary effluents (expected result) but also to obtain low fouling levels. The different composition and
molecular weight distribution of MBR and CAS-UF effluents can explain the different fouling behaviours that
were observed.
© 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction The impacts of synthetic secondary effluents on membrane fouling

Wastewater represents a source of contamination but also a source
of reusable water. The challenge of wastewater reuse is to eliminate
pathogens and micropollutants that could have negative impacts on
human's health, animal's health and the environment [1,2].
Domestic wastewater treatment consists of three different steps:
(i) the primary treatment retains coarse and readily settleable in-
organic solids such as sand and grit particles, (ii) the secondary
treatment, such as conventional activated sludge (CAS) or membrane
bioreactors (MBR), combines physico-chemical and biological pro-
cesses in order to remove oxygen-demanding organic pollutants (iii)
the tertiary treatment objective is to remove residual organic matter,
inorganic molecules and remaining microorganisms. When a high
water quality is desired, membrane processes such as reverse osmosis
(RO) and nanofiltration (NF) might be used as tertiary treatment.
☆ Presented at the Conference on Membranes in Drinking and Industrial Water
Production, 20-24 October 2008, Toulouse, France.
⁎ Corresponding author. Université de Toulouse, INSA, UPS, INP, LISBP, 135 Avenue
de Rangueil, F-31077 Toulouse, France.
E-mail addresses: matthieu.jacob@insa-toulouse.fr (M. Jacob),
christelle.guigui@insa-toulouse.fr (C. Guigui), corinne.cabassud@insa-toulouse.fr
(C. Cabassud), hdarras@saur.fr (H. Darras), gwenaelle.lavison@crecep.fr (G. Lavison),
laurent.moulin@crecep.fr (L. Moulin).
and on its micropollutant rejection have been studied for a wide range
of nanofiltration (NF) and reverse osmosis (RO) membranes [3].
Osmotic pressure, adsorption, steric hindrance, and electrostatic
repulsion are the main mechanisms responsible for permeate flux
decline of these membranes [4–8]. Nevertheless, these mechanisms
have been mostly determined from experiments with synthetic
solutions. Operating with real effluents rarely occurs in the literature.
Indeed, the complex matrix composed of humics, polysaccharides
etc… makes the understanding of fouling phenomena particularly
complicated.
Firstly, on the one hand, among the few studies using real
secondary treatment effluent (STE), RO retention capacities have
been often studied [9–11]. Most of the indicators such as total organic
carbon (TOC), conductivity and UV absorbance… are highly rejected
(above 95%) by RO membranes whatever the experimental condi-
tions. On the other hand, the difference of behaviour between NF and
RO membranes has never been studied with real STE.
Secondly, few publications focus on the fouling performances of
the tertiary treatment. The comparison between tertiary treatments
after a membrane bioreactor (MBR), a conventional activated sludge
process in addition with ultrafiltration (CAS-UF) and even a micro-
filtration underlined the high performance of the MBR process as
pretreatment before RO (30% less flux decline [10] compared to CAS-

0011-9164/$ – see front matter © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.desal.2008.11.052
834 M. Jacob et al. / Desalination 250 (2010) 833–839

UF before RO). The impact of volume reduction factors (VRF) over Table 1
fouling has also been studied by Garcia-Figueruelo et al. [12]. Their Membrane characteristics.

study shows that, up to a VRF of 3, there is not any fouling of the RO Membrane NF-lo NF-ti RO-m
membrane when filtrating real STE. Deeper investigation of the
Salt retention 40–60% CaCl2 85–95% CaCl2 N98% CaCl2
influence of VRF, concentration factor and trans-membrane pressure N97% MgSO4 N97% MgSO4
(TMP) would allow to improve the full water reuse process in terms of Water permeability at 20 °C (L h m2 bar) 12.1 6.2 3.6
energy and water saving. Experimental measurements +/−1.1 +/−0.6 +/−0.1
Contact angle (°) 28 63 69
Then, the following study focuses on the comparison of two
Zeta potential at pH7 (mV) Negative Negative Negative
different secondary and tertiary treatment processes and thus to the − 19.7 − 14.2 − 7.7
following treatment lines: CAS-UF + RO/NF and MBR + RO/NF as
shown in Fig. 1.
Analysis of TOC, conductivity, UV at 254 nm, UV at 210 nm and
volume reduction factor (VRF = V0 / (V0 − Vp)) were calculated versus
HPLC-SEC chromatography provide information about retention
filtration time.
capacities of the membranes under different experimental conditions.
At the end of each filtration, membranes were washed with ultrapure
Filtration performances are determined by flux decline measurements
water. The water permeability after rinsing was then measured and
(fouling velocities) and autopsies of the membrane surface by
compared with the water permeability before filtration. The difference of
scanning electronic microscopy (fouling structure). The effect of
permeability enabled to measure the flux decline due to irreversible
VRF, STE's matrix and TMP on the RO and NF membrane performances
fouling (or reversible only by addition of chemicals).
in terms of filtration and retention performances is investigated at lab
The fouling resistance (Rc) is given by Darcy's law (Eq. (1)):
scale with real effluents.

TMP−Δπ
J= ð1Þ
2. Materials and methods μ⋅ðRm + Rc Þ

2.1. Membrane characteristics

J permeate flux at 20 °C (m3 s− 1 m− 2)
One RO (RO-m), one loose NF (NF-lo) and one tight NF (NF-ti) thin TMP trans-membrane pressure (Pa)
film composite polyamide membranes were used for this study. Δπ osmotic pressure gradient (Pa)
Table 1 describes the main characteristics of these membranes. The µ permeate viscosity at 20 °C (Pa s)
membrane with the higher salt retention presents also the lower Rm resistance of the membrane (m− 1)
water permeability. Moreover, all these membranes have negative Rc resistance due to the membrane fouling (m− 1)
surface charge and tend to be hydrophobic (except NF-lo).
The following part describes the different analysis performed.

2.2. Experimental protocol 2.3. Analytical methods

STEs were sampled from two MBRs (AquaRM®, SAUR (France))
and one CAS-UF process treating domestic wastewater was used as
feed effluent for RO or NF filtrations (properties of these effluents are
given in Section 2.4).
Ultrafiltration was performed with a module containing NORIT
hollow fibers (MWCO = 200 kDa) at an average flux of 70 to 100 L h− 1
m− 2 at constant pressure equal to 0.5 bar.
A 500 mL (V0) stirred filtration cell was used for filtration of STEs
by RO and NF membranes at constant pressure (4–6–8–12 bars) and
constant stirring. The velocity of the mixer at the blade extremities
was equal to 0.3 m s− 1. For each experiment, a new piece of mem-
brane of 0.0045 m2 was used. During filtration, the volume of reten-
tate decreased according to the volume of filtrated permeate. In order
to compare each experiment, the normalized flux (J/J0) and the
2.3.1. UV/VIS spectroscopy (JASCO V-530)
Absorbances at 210 nm, 254 nm and 280 nm were performed.
The wavelength at 210 nm enables to detect most of the organic
compounds such as aldehydes, carboxylic acids, esters, nitrites, etc…
Absorption at 254 nm is characteristic of aromatic molecules.
Absorbance at 280 nm is mainly used to detect proteins.
2.3.2. High performance size exclusion chromatography (HPLC-SEC)
Size exclusion chromatography enables the determination of the
molecular size of organic molecules. A SHODEX SB802.5 column was
used. The mobile phase consisted of 25 mM Na2SO4 and phosphate
buffer as defined by Her et al. [13]. The system was calibrated using
dextran molecules (1, 5, 12, 20 kDa) and operated at 0.4 mL min− 1
with 100 µL injections and detection of UV at 210 nm and 254 nm.

Fig. 1. Study case: impact of CAS-UF and MBR secondary treatments on tertiary treatment membranes (NF or RO) performances.
 M. Jacob et al. / Desalination 250 (2010) 833–839 835

Table 2 3. Results and discussion

Effluent characteristics.

MBR-1 effluent MBR-2 effluent CAS + UF effluent 3.1. Performance of reverse osmosis membrane
UV 254 nm 0.148 0.155 0.215
UV 210 nm 3.207 1.579 1.880 Table 3 summarizes rejections of RO-m for the 3 effluents at
UV 280 nm 0.128 0.115 0.163 different TMP and VRF.
TOC (mg L− 1) 8.0 6.0 7.6 Firstly, as expected, it can be observed that RO-m presents reten-
COD (mg L− 1) 12 13 18
tions higher than 90% for every indicator. Furthermore, a slight in-
SUVA 1.9 2.6 2.8
SS (mg L− 1) b2 b2 b2 fluence of the TMP can be noticed on the indicator UV at 210 nm. The
Mg2+ (mg L− 1) 9.8 8.9 23.3 VRF does not influence the retention capacities as well. The average
Ca2+ (mg L− 1) 28.4 25.0 24.1 retentions are also the same whatever the feed water. Consequently,
Conductivity (µS cm− 1) 894 631 1300 the composition of effluent in the filtration cell has no effect on RO-m
Nitrates (mg L− 1) – 2 –
performances in terms of retention capacities.
– : not measured. Fig. 2 shows the flux decline of the RO-m for the 3 STEs tested at
the same pressure equal to 8 bars.
On the one hand, similar flux declines, for all effluents, can be
Total organic carbon (model “TOC-VCSH/CSN”, Shimadzu), chemical
observed from the beginning of the experiment to VRF equal to 2.3
oxygen demand (COD) (AFNOR NFT 90-101), suspended solids (SS)
(zone A). On the other hand, from VRF equal to 2.5 to the end of
(standard NF EN 872), conductivity (standard NF EN 27888) and
filtration (zone B), the flux decreases abruptly (around 60%/VRF unit)
concentration of magnesium and calcium by atomic absorption spec-
for MBR-1 and CAS effluents. Then, two different fouling mechanisms
troscopy were also measured. Autopsies of the membranes were
occur in zones A and B except for MBR-2 effluent. Indeed, the MBR-2
performed by scanning electronic microscopy (SEM) (JEOL 5410 LV
effluent exhibits a constant slight linear flux decline versus VRF (5%/
instrumentation).
VRF unit) until the end of the filtration. Furthermore, the effluent
Samples of feed (STE), retentate at the end of the filtration, and
that is less concentrated (MBR-2), particularly in organic matter and
permeate (4 samples of permeate for each experiment according to
conductivity, shows also the lower flux declines compared to MBR-1
VFR= 1.1; 1.4; 2.0 and 3.3) were collected for each experiment. Then,
effluent.
solute concentrations of the retentate (Cr) and permeate (Cp) enabled to
Fig. 3 displays SEM analysis of a clean RO-m and two RO-ms at the
calculate the observed solute retention capacity (Robs) of the membrane
end of MBR-1 and MBR-2 effluent filtrations at 8 bars.
(Eq. (2)). TOC, UV at 210 nm, UV at 254 nm and conductivity are the
No filtration cake was observed with the MBR-2 effluent which is
indicators used in this study to calculate these observed retention
consistent with the low flux decline observed, whereas MBR-1 ef-
capacities.
fluent causes formation of a visible cake. Furthermore, after water
rinsing of these membranes, more than 95% of permeability recovery
was obtained for both effluents. Consequently, the two fouling ten-
Cp
Robs = 1− ð2Þ dencies described previously are the results of a reversible fouling.
Cr
Then, the first mechanism could be due to the rise of the osmotic
pressure or electrostatic interactions. The second mechanisms could
be the result of a cake formation.
Robs observed retention capacity As the more important flux decline was observed with MBR-1
Cp permeate concentration (kg m− 3 or mg L− 1) effluent, it was decided to study the influence of pressure on per-
Cr retentate concentration (kg m− 3 or mg L− 1) formances of filtration of the MBR-1 effluent. Thus, Fig. 4 presents the
effects of the TMP on the flux decline during the filtration of MBR-1
effluent with the RO-m.
TMP does not act on RO-m performance in terms of flux decline.
2.4. Secondary treatment effluent characteristics Same results about TMP effects were obtained with the other effluents
(MBR-2 and CAS), which means that, in this range of pressure (4 to
The characteristics of the effluent used in this study are described 12 bars) cake deposits are not compressible.
in Table 2.
Organic and mineral contents of the CAS effluent are globally 3.2. Performance of nanofiltration membranes
higher than MBR ones. Compositions of MBR effluents are very close.
Nevertheless, conductivity, TOC, calcium and magnesium, and UV210 Table 4 summarizes rejections of NF-ti and NF-lo for the 3 effluents
are lower for MBR-2 than for MBR-1. at different TMP and VRF.

Table 3
RO-m retention capacities (%).

4 bars 8 bars 12 bars

UV210 UV254 TOC Cond UV210 UV254 TOC Cond UV210 UV254 TOC Cond

MBR-2
VRF = 1.1 91 96 91 97 95 N98 91 97 96 97 92 98
VRF = 1.4 90 89 91 96 97 N98 95 97 97 N98 96 98
VRF = 2 92 N98 96 96 95 N98 96 97 96 N98 97 98
VRF = 3.3 90 N98 95 96 94 N98 97 97 97 N98 98 98
Average 91 95 93 96 95 N98 95 97 97 N98 96 98
MBR-1
Average 94 97 97 98 97 N98 97 98 96 N98 97 98
CAS + UF
Average 93 N98 96 96 94 97 96 97 96 N98 96 98
836 M. Jacob et al. / Desalination 250 (2010) 833–839

Fig. 2. RO-m's flux decline versus VRF at 8 bars for MBR-1, MBR-2 and CAS effluents. Fig. 4. RO-m's flux decline versus VRF at 6, 8 and 12 bars for MBR-1 effluent.

High retention (N90%) of aromatic molecules (UV at 254 nm),
conductivity and TOC were observed for NF-ti but retention is smaller
than 80% for molecules absorbing UV at 210 nm. NF-lo shows retention
higher than 90% for aromatic molecules but low retention (b50%) of
molecules absorbing UV at 210 nm and conductivity. Globally, NF-ti, as
it was expected, allows higher retention capacities than NF-lo. The effect
of TMP on retentions is higher for NF-lo than for NF-ti. Indeed, for a
pressure varying from 4 to 12 bars, retention of molecules absorbing UV
at 210 nm by NF-lo almost doubles when the one of NF-ti rises to about
10 to 20%. Furthermore, for NF membranes, the higher the VRF, the
higher is the retention.
Figs. 5 and 6 display the effect of TMP on the flux decline of NF-lo
and NF-ti respectively for the CAS effluent.
For both membranes, the higher the TMP, the higher is the flux
decline. For NF-lo, three tendencies can be observed. At low pressure
(4 and 6 bars), there is a low flux decline (10%/VRFunit) up to VRF
equal to 3 followed by a higher flux decrease (25%/u). At
intermediate pressure (8 bars), the flux drops linearly with the
VRF. Finally, at high pressure (N12 bars), the flux decline is high
(80%/u) at the beginning of the filtration and then decreases
according to VRF (~ 15%/u). On Fig. 6, for NF-ti, the flux tends to
decrease linearly with the VRF for all the TMPs.
Furthermore, water rinsing of fouled membranes gives the following
results (Table 5).
Permeability recovery is much higher for NF-lo than for NF-ti
whatever the pressure. Moreover, an increase of TMP causes a rise
of irreversible fouling. For NF-lo, the flux decline behaviour at low
pressure tends to the one observed with RO. Thus, fouling is also
probably due to osmotic pressure and electrostatic repulsion up to
VRF equal to 2–3 and then to the formation of a cake. Adsorption

Fig. 3. SEM analysis of three (RO-m)s (×5000): a clean RO-m, RO-m after fouling by MBR-2 and RO-m after fouling by MBR-1.
 M. Jacob et al. / Desalination 250 (2010) 833–839 837

Table 4
Retention capacities of NF membranes.

4 bars 8 bars 12 bars

UV210 UV254 TOC Cond UV210 UV254 TOC Cond UV210 UV254 TOC Cond

NF-ti
MBR-1
VRF = 1.1 67 N98 74 90 75 95 82 92 77 97 91 93
VRF = 1.4 72 N98 94 92 79 N98 93 93 80 96 93 95
VRF = 2 76 N98 96 92 81 N98 95 94 82 98 93 95
VRF = 3.3 – – – – 81 N98 93 92 81 97 87 91
average 72 N98 98 91 79 97 91 93 80 97 91 93
MBR-2 67 98 92 91 79 N98 93 93 78 98 93 94
average
CAS + UF – – – – 74 97 96 90 – – – –
average
NF-lo
MBR-1
VRF = 1.1 4 86 – 32 3 92 52 40 10 N98 – 39
VRF = 1.4 11 85 33 7 96 58 42 20 N98 44
VRF = 2 9 93 36 16 98 63 50 22 N98 48
VRF = 3.3 18 94 46 18 N98 72 56 32 N98 56
average 10 89 37 11 96 61 47 21 N98 46
MBR-2
average 26 97 94 35 32 94 91 37 42 96 95 46

– : not measured.

and internal pore blocking could be then responsible for the

irreversible fouling noticed at high pressure for NF-lo and at all
pressures for NF-ti.

3.3. Comparison of nanofiltration and reverse osmosis membranes

Fig. 7 shows the HPLC-SEC chromatograms of MBR-2 (a), CAS feed

(b) and RO and NF permeates.
The chromatograms show the presence of two main fractions of
molecules: large molecules of molecular weight between 6 and
10 kDa and small molecules with molecular weight around 1 kDa.
High retention of big molecules but very low retention of small
molecules is observed with NF-lo. NF-ti has moderate retention of the
two fractions of molecules. At last, RO-m shows high retention of
every fraction of molecules absorbing UV at 210 nm (cf Table 6).
Consequently, these small molecules absorbing UV at 210 nm, going
through NF membranes, could be responsible for pore blocking and
adsorption inside the pores of the NF membrane.
Fig. 5. NF-lo flux declines versus VRF at 4, 6, 8 and 12 bars for CAS effluent.
Fig. 8 presents the performance of NF-ti, NF-lo and RO-m at 8 bars
for MBR-1 and for CAS effluents.
Firstly, at 8 bars, shapes of NF and RO filtration curves are different.
NF curves present linear flux decline according to VRF while RO curves
show two distinct zones with a high flux drop for VRF higher than 2.5.
In zone A, RO flux decline is much lower than NF one; inversely, in
zone B. Consequently RO-m presents the highest filtration perfor-
mance in terms of fouling velocity and retention capacities compared
to NF up to VRF equal to 2.5 (cf Table 6). Then, this difference of
fouling behaviour could be due to internal fouling. Indeed, as shown
above, RO-m retains almost all molecules; consequently molecules
hardly go through RO-m which is not the case for NF membranes.
Then, for VRF higher than 2.5, RO-m presents higher fouling velocities
than NF membranes probably due to different cake deposit structures.
Table 6 sums up the main filtration performance of the NF and RO
membranes for the 3 effluents studied.

Table 5
Permeability recovery of NF-lo and NF-ti after filtration of CAS-UF effluent at different
pressures.

TMP (bars) 4 6 8 12

NF-lo (%) ~ 100 ~ 100 91 69

NF-ti (%) 92 78 64 60
Fig. 6. NF-ti flux declines versus VRF at 4, 6, 8 and 12 bars for CAS effluent.
838 M. Jacob et al. / Desalination 250 (2010) 833–839

Fig. 8. RO and NFs flux declines for CAS and MBR-1 effluents at 8 bars.

VRF equal to 2.5, an industrial process would need a smaller

membrane surface area when using NF-lo.

4. Conclusion

The objective of this paper was to study the impact of the

Fig. 7. Analyses of feed and permeates of MBR-2 (a) and CAS (b) effluents filtration by
NF and RO membranes by chromatography with UV at 210 nm detector.
On Table 6, it can be observed that even if NF-lo flux decline is
higher than the one of RO-m, the remaining NF-lo flux is still higher
than the one of RO-m due to their difference of permeability. Then, at
secondary effluent matrix on the NF and RO filtration performance
used as tertiary treatment. Two MBR and one CAS effluents were
tested. Fouling of different membranes according to different volume
ratio factors and trans-membrane pressures was also investigated.
At the same constant pressure, the more concentrated effluents
(MBR-1 and CAS) show higher flux decline than the less concentrated
one (MBR-2). It means that even a low difference of TOC concentra-
tion (20% between MBR-1 and MBR-2) or conductivity (30%) can lead
to a very different fouling behaviour of the same membrane. More-
over, RO membranes show two distinct fouling mechanisms: (i) from
the beginning of the filtration to VRF equal to 2.5, very low flux decline
was detected whatever the pressure, (ii) from VRF equal to 2.5 to the
end of the filtration, high flux decline was observed. Contrary to RO
membranes, NF membranes are pressure dependant. Tight NF
membrane (NF-ti) shows a linear flux decline during all the filtration
for every pressure and the higher the pressure, the higher is the flux
decline. Flux decline of NF-lo tends to the one of RO at low pressure
(4–6 bars) and tends to the one of NF-ti at high pressure (8–12 bars).
Finally, whatever the experimental conditions, at VRF inferior to 2.5,
RO flux decline is always lower than NF flux decline. Due to the dif-
ference in membrane permeability, a higher flux can be observed with

Table 6
Summary table of RO and NF membranes performances with MBR-1, MBR-2 and CAS-UF effluents.

MBR-1 MBR-2 CAS-UF

RO NF-lo NF-ti RO NF-lo NF-ti RO NF-lo NF-ti

J/J0 at VRF = 2.5 at 8 bars 0.86 0.58 0.20 0.91 – 0.78 0.82 0.73 0.46
Flux at VRF = 2.5 at 8 bars 23.4 55.1 10.9 22.8 – 56.4 21.8 65.1 26.8
(L h− 1 m− 2)
Permeability recovery by – – – – – – 98.9 90.1 64.0
rinsing (%)
Retention molecules – – – +++ – ++ +++ + ++
1000 Da
Retention molecules – – – +++ – ++ +++ +++ ++
10,000 Da
Retention UV210 (%) 95.5 10.1 78.8 95.4 – 78.8 97.6 32.4 74.0
Retention UV254 (%) 99.9 95.9 98.0 100 – 100 94.4 93.6 98.8

– : not measured +: low retention ++: medium retention +++:high retention.

 M. Jacob et al. / Desalination 250 (2010) 833–839
NF-lo even if the contribution of fouling is higher than for the one of
the RO membrane.
As expected, RO retention capacities are higher than NF ones. The
main difference of retention capacity between NF-ti and RO concerns
the molecules that absorb UV at 210 nm. It has been demonstrated by
chromatography that a low molecular weight fraction is well retained
by RO contrary to NF. These low molecular weight molecules could be
responsible for internal pore blocking of NF membranes which would
explain the better fouling behaviour of RO membranes.
Thus, this study has shown the important impact of VRF on the
fouling of tertiary treatment membranes. A coming pilot study will
help to improve understanding of these phenomena thanks to
experiments performed at constant VRF during long periods. The
impact of the secondary treatment parameters on the RO and NF
performances will also be investigated.
Acknowledgment
This study was funded by ANR, French National Research Agency,
in the frame of project REEBIM (“Réutilisation d'eau usée épurée par
association de procédés biologiques et membranaires”).
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