The use of polymer membranes is of increasing importance for application in modern, efficient filtration technology. These materials with tailored pore sizes are especially interesting for water treatment, sterile filtration, hemodialysis, or biorefinery.

Recently, studies in Europe demonstrated the presence of more than 150 pharmaceuticals in wastewater, surface water, and even ground water. Since common water treatment facilities can’t retain or even degrade the compounds from water new methods are currently investigated for removing pharmaceuticals and their metabolites from wastewater.

The development of functional membrane surfaces allows simultaneous use as traditional filters and for degradation or adsorption of micropollutants in the water to be filtered. For this purpose, polymeric microfiltration membranes were functionalized with photocatalysts such as TiO₂ or Bi₂WO₆, but also with enzymes or adsorptive coatings and tested in various applications^.[1-3] The functional membrane surfaces were found to be highly active in eliminating or adsorbing micropollutants such as diclofenac, propranolol and estradiol from water (see figure). Different reactor types were investigated and evaluated regarding their efficiency to remove the target molecule.