The Subcommittee initially compiled a list of industrial wastewater pretreatment technologies known to be used in the pollution control industry. The thought was to focus more on each individual technology's ability to remove mercury from the wastestream and less on the ability of a packaged system's performance ability. For mercury contained in biomass, simple filtration would be used as a roughing or course removal step. For wastestreams heavily laden with particulate matter which would prove deleterious to subsequent unit operations processes, filtration might be employed.
Membranes are fairly rugged and reusable after cleaning.
Most familiar to Hospitals are RO systems used for the desalinization of incoming City water in conjunction with ion exchange components. Membranes used by RO technology are easily fouled by organic material and can be nearly destroyed by exposure to chlorine and other oxidants. Most resins are organically derived synthetics which would also be adversely affected by the presence of biological activity. Typically, activated carbon is used as an adsorbent in situations where dilute solvents present in the wastestream must be removed though carbon has also historically been used for removing low levels of heavy metals, such as and including mercury, from aqueous phase. A significant disadvantage to the use of activated carbon in a hospital wastestream setting, however, is its availability to biological activity as a food source.