Drinking water obtaining by nanofiltration from waters contaminated with glyphosate formulations: process evaluation by means of toxicity tests and studies on operating parameters.

Glyphosate formulations toxicity depends on all its components but commercial products only specify the active principle in their label. To treat contaminated waters and to verify if the unknown components which add toxicity have been removed represent a challenge. Nanofiltration and permeate analysis by toxicity tests with fish are an interesting alternative to evaluate the process. Permeates of solutions with concentrations five times above the lethal doses (48 mg/l) did not present toxicity, pointing that all toxic compounds were removed at the same time. Glyphosate rejection over an 80% despite its molecular weight is lower than membrane MWCO, this could be associated to a predominant Donnan exclusion mechanism, combined with dielectric exclusion due to the solute high charge density. Glyphosate concentration did not show any effect over rejection. It increased when pressure was incremented from 2.5 to 4 bar and then remained constant in a 4-10 bar range. Because of dissociation of the glyphosate and the surface charged of the membrane depend on pH value, the rejection increase from 72.5 to 92.5% when pH increase from 4 to 8.5. Studies with river water showed the same behavior with a slight decrease in rejection.