Advancing Municipal Wastewater Treatment: VSEP RO for Removal of PFAS, PPCPs, and Emerging Contaminants
By Greg Johnson, New Logic Research
Abstract
Emerging contaminants such as pharmaceuticals, personal care products (PPCPs), PFAS, microplastics, and endocrine‑disrupting compounds are increasingly detected in municipal wastewater effluent, yet conventional publicly owned treatment works (POTWs) were never designed to remove these persistent chemicals. As a result, many biologically active compounds pass through treatment processes unchanged and accumulate in rivers, groundwater, soils, and even drinking water supplies. These contaminants pose risks including antibiotic resistance, endocrine disruption, ecological toxicity, bioaccumulation, and long‑term human health impacts. Wastewater monitoring has recently become a powerful tool for tracking community health, pathogen spread, chemical loads, and treatment plant performance, highlighting the pervasive presence of emerging pollutants in sewered communities. To address these challenges, significant upgrades to municipal treatment systems are needed. Options such as granular activated carbon, ion exchange, advanced oxidation processes, and membrane systems each offer partial solutions, but reverse osmosis—particularly Vibratory Shear Enhanced Processing (VSEP) RO—provides the highest removal efficiency for PPCPs, PFAS, microplastics, nanoparticles, and other contaminants in difficult wastewater streams. This paper reviews the limitations of current POTW technology, the growing risks associated with emerging pollutants, and the role of advanced treatment—especially VSEP RO—in modernizing municipal wastewater infrastructure to protect public health and the environment.
Emerging Pollutants and PFAS are Bypassing POTWs
There is growing focus on wastewater discharge as it relates to heavy metals, nitrogen, phosphorus, and other naturally occurring organic and inorganic materials. However, a wide range of emerging chemicals and byproducts have historically gone unnoticed and are only recently gaining attention. PFAS chemicals are one example. Another category includes pharmaceuticals, personal care products, and certain pathogens. Municipal sewage plants treat wastewater and discharge it to rivers or other surface waters. In many cases, the discharge from one community becomes the drinking water source for another downstream. While the EPA regulates discharges from these facilities, POTWs were not designed to remove every contaminant. Many chemicals and pharmaceutical products pass through these systems and enter the environment.
Typical publicly owned treatment works (POTWs) remove suspended solids and biodegradable organic material. Some facilities add treatment processes for nutrient removal (nitrogen and phosphorus), but this is not universal. Biological systems can reduce pathogens indirectly through competition and natural die‑off. However, conventional POTWs remove only a small fraction of pharmaceuticals, personal care products, surfactants, pesticides, or industrial chemicals such as PFAS.
Most pharmaceuticals—including painkillers, antidepressants, antibiotics, and hormones (e.g., estrogen)—pass through POTWs largely unchanged because they resist biodegradation and occur at low but biologically active concentrations. Hormones and hormone-like chemicals act as endocrine disruptors, persist even after secondary treatment, and can affect aquatic life at extremely low concentrations. Heavy metals (lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium, etc.) do not biodegrade and only partially settle into sludge. Biological treatment reduces pathogens but only selectively and incompletely; many antibiotic-resistant bacteria and resistance genes pass through and are discharged to surface waters.
Another category of emerging pollutants includes persistent man-made substances such as PFAS, flame retardants, plasticizers (phthalates, BPA), and other chlorinated organics. Due to their small size and buoyancy, microplastics and nanoparticles also pass through conventional treatment systems.
POTWs were originally designed for domestic sewage and were not engineered to handle complex chemical mixtures. Industrial waste is often pre-treated before entering the sewer, but there is no such treatment for household wastewater. As a result, pharmaceuticals, personal care products (PPCPs), and emerging pollutants have historically gone unmeasured and unregulated, spreading throughout the environment and ultimately appearing in tap water.
The Risks of PPCPs to Health and the Environment
Pharmaceuticals, personal care products (PPCPs), and emerging contaminants enter wastewater through human excretion, hospital and industrial effluents, agricultural runoff, and improper disposal. Many of these compounds pass through wastewater treatment plants largely unchanged, leading to persistent contamination of rivers, groundwater, soils, and even drinking water supplies. Key risks include:
- Spread of Antibiotic Resistance
Antibiotics in wastewater exert selective pressure that encourages antibiotic‑resistant strains. This leads to harder‑to‑treat infections, reduced treatment options, and increased public health risks.
- Endocrine Disruption in Humans and Wildlife
Compounds such as hormones, antidepressants, and birth-control chemicals act as endocrine disruptors. Even at low concentrations, they alter reproductive cycles, feminize fish, reduce fertility, and pose long‑term risks to humans through chronic exposure.
- Toxicity to Aquatic Organisms
More than 600 pharmaceuticals have been detected globally in soil and water influenced by wastewater discharge. Many remain biologically active and cause behavioral changes, immune suppression, altered feeding, and mortality in sensitive species.
- Alteration of Microbial Communities
Pharmaceuticals can disrupt natural aquatic microbiota, affecting nutrient cycling, decomposition, and ecosystem stability.
- Bioaccumulation and Food‑Chain Transfer
Pharmaceutical residues are taken up by crops and aquatic organisms. Persistent compounds (hormones, antidepressants, NSAIDs) bioaccumulate and transfer to fish, livestock, and humans.
- Unknown Long‑Term Human Health Risks
Although concentrations in drinking water are generally low, long‑term chronic exposure remains poorly understood.
- Groundwater Contamination
Pharmaceuticals, especially NSAIDs, hormones, antibiotics, and antidepressants, frequently appear in groundwater and can present chronic exposure risks for well water systems.
- Environmental Persistence and Accumulation
Many pharmaceutical compounds break down slowly or not at all. POTWs cannot remove them effectively because they resist biodegradation. Environmental concentrations have been shown to accumulate over time.
Wastewater Monitoring: The New Early‑Warning System
Wastewater monitoring has become a powerful, non-intrusive tool for understanding community health and chemical exposure. Because nearly everything humans consume or excrete enters the sewer, wastewater acts as a pooled, anonymous snapshot of population-level conditions. Key Applications:
- Pathogen detection:Wastewater surveillance gained prominence during COVID‑19, when SARS‑CoV‑2 RNA was detectable in sewage before clinical cases rose. Similar methods now monitor influenza, RSV, norovirus, poliovirus, and hepatitis.
- Tracking antibiotic resistance genes:Sequencing wastewater provides insight into resistance trends and hotspots.
- Measuring pharmaceutical and chemical use:Wastewater reflects chemical consumption patterns, environmental impacts, and illicit drug trends.
- Detecting industrial spills and chemical upsets:Monitoring can reveal heavy metals, pesticides, and PFAS trends days to weeks earlier than conventional observation.
Is It Time for a Municipal Upgrade?
Once risks are understood, mitigation plans can begin. Some POTWs have upgraded to remove nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus. Future upgrades will likely address emerging pollutants such as PFAS, PPCPs, and microplastics. Because conventional treatment methods are largely unchanged since ancient Roman times, modernization is necessary to handle modern chemical loads. Industrial sources can be regulated, but household wastewater cannot—placing responsibility on POTWs.
POTWs historically remove solids, BOD/COD, nutrients, and some pathogens, but cannot remove PPCPs or PFAS. Modern upgrades must incorporate physical, chemical, and advanced oxidation processes. No single technology is a complete solution.
POTW Upgrade Options
There are a wide range of emerging pollutants, but if you focus on PPCPs, PFAS, and micro-plastics there are many upgrade options, each with its own limitations.
Granular Activated Carbon (GAC) – This works by adsorbing organics into carbon pores. The GAC has a very large surface area relative to is overall size and can adsorb a lot of material. The EPA includes GAC and a viable treatment option for PPCPs. It is effective for long chain PFAS, but not for smaller short-chain PFAS. It works especially well for hydrophobic materials. Its removal of microplastics would be limited to hydrophobic materials.
Ion Exchange Resins – PFAS binds to positively charged resin exchange sites. IX can remove both long-chain and short-chain PFAS to a significant degree, but not 100% removal. This would have only limited performance for PPCPs and microplastics.
Reverse Osmosis (RO) Membrane Systems – The EPA has recommended RO membranes for PPCP removal. RO membranes are also extremely effective for all kinds of PFAS, microplastics, and nanoparticle removal. Membranes use a physical barrier that segregates by molecular weight size and will have a higher capital cost, but will provide the cleanest treated water quality. Membranes not only remove these emerging pollutants, but also remove heavy metals, nitrogen, and phosphorus.
Advanced Oxidation – Ozone, UV, H2O2, or electrochemical oxidation methods are effective at PPCP destruction and for some degradation of PFAS.
How VSEP RO Compares to Other Technologies
VSEP RO is a leading technology for removing PFAS, PPCPs, and microplastics from challenging wastewater streams—particularly those high in solids, organics, and fouling constituents. Compared to others:
Better than conventional RO / NF → Higher flux, lower fouling, treats dirtier water
More robust than MBRs or sand filters → True molecular barrier, consistent removal
Complementary to AOPs → Use VSEP for bulk removal, AOP for destruction
If the goal is high-efficiency removal of emerging contaminants from difficult wastewater, VSEP RO is one of the most effective membrane-based solutions available. VSEP RO not only removes PFAS, PPCPs, microplastics, and nanoparticles, but, it also removes many other pollution materials such as heavy metals, nitrogen, and phosphorus.
It has been studied extensively for tertiary municipal applications, including a CH2M Hill study at Big Bear Resort (California), research at Lund University (Sweden) for blackwater treatment, and ongoing studies at a POTW in Norway.
Summary
Municipal sewage treatment plants using ancient technologies have not kept pace with modern chemical usage. PFAS, PPCPs, and microplastics accumulate in the environment and pose growing risks to human health and ecosystems. Upgrading POTWs is essential to prevent continued recirculation and environmental buildup. Technologies such as VSEP RO provide a modern, effective solution for emerging contaminants that conventional systems cannot remove.