Nanomaterials and Water Purification: Opportunities and Challenges

By Nora Savage, Mamadou Saliou Diallo. 2005

1,127 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Advances in nanoscale science and engineering suggest that many of the current problems involving water quality could be resolved or greatly ameliorated using nanosorbents, nanocatalysts, bioactive nanoparticles, nanostructured catalytic membranes and nanoparticle enhanced filtration among other products and processes resulting from the development of nanotechnology. Innovations in the development of novel technologies to desalinate water are among the most exciting and promising. Additionally, nanotechnology-derived products that reduce the concentrations of toxic compounds to sub-ppb levels can assist in the attainment of water quality standards and health advisories. This article gives an overview of the use of nanomaterials in water purification. We highlight recent advances on the development of novel nanoscale materials and processes for treatment of surface water, groundwater and industrial wastewater contaminated by toxic metal ions, radionuclides, organic and inorganic solutes, bacteria and viruses. In addition, we discuss some challenges associated with the development of cost effective and environmentally acceptable functional nanomaterials for water purification.

Subfields: Biomedical Engineering, Materials Chemistry, Organic Chemistry

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e5a7bcbaa7ddf318a5f6faef7df184530ad5aaf1

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Citations in the corpus

Removal of heavy metals from aqueous solutions using Fe3O4, ZnO, and CuO nanoparticles (2012, background): “Thus, several inorganic and organic adsorbents have been proposed for use in adsorption methods, including zeolites, clay minerals, fly ash, biosorbents, and activated carbon (Savage and Diallo 2005; Abollino et al. 2003; Sheng et al. 2004; Wingenfelder et al. 2005; Ghorbel-Abid et al. 2009; Afkhami”
Applications of nanomaterials in water treatment and environmental remediation (2014, background): “required about scaling up of TiO2-based photocatalytic reactors [29].”
Impact of humic/fulvic acid on the removal of heavy metals from aqueous solutions using nanomaterials: a review. (2014, background): “In the last two decades, nanotechnology has developed with its applications in almost all branches of science and technology (Kaur and Gupta, 2009; Savage and Diallo, 2005).”
Recent developments in environmental photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants: the case of titanium dioxide nanoparticles—a review (2015, background): “This is because the surface-to-volume ratio increases drastically with the decrease of the adsorbent from bulk to nanodimensions [2, 7, 11, 87, 113].”
Nanoparticles as Adsorbent; A Positive Approach for Removal of Noxious Metal Ions: A Review (2015, background): “…adsorbent easily, (4) The sorbents could be infinitely recycled and (5) The process should be reversible so that we can get our adsorbent back; the nanoparticles studied in the removal of heavy metal ions from wastewater should show high adsorption capacity (Cloete, 2010; Savage and Diallo, 2005).”
Multifunctional carbon nanotubes in water treatment: The present, past and future (2014, background): “However, standard experimental procedure with pilot projects is necessary to integrate CNTs into existingmembranes, which could boost up total CNT water purification capacity [178].”
Preparation and antibacterial activity of chitosan-based nanocomposites containing bentonite-supported silver and zinc oxide nanoparticles for water disinfection (2015, background): “The gravity of water shortages, including quality issues and their effects on the health of consumers, makes it necessary to direct considerable and focused efforts toward research and development programs in the drinking water sector (Savage and Diallo, 2005).”