Application of Nanomaterials in Wastewater Treatment

Department of Chemistry, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, United Kingdom.

^* Corresponding author: Frank.Feng@warwick.ac.uk

Abstract

Water scarcity is one of the current problems that people need to solve, and wastewater treatment is one of the effective ways to solve it. However, traditional wastewater treatment methods are inefficient, and pollutants cannot be removed entirely. Nanotechnology can effectively address the above issues and its application in wastewater treatment has been researched extensively. This paper introduces nano-adsorbents, nano-photocatalysts and nanomembranes, which are all considered to have a promising prospect in wastewater treatment. Nano-adsorbents are classified as carbon-based nanomaterials, metalbased nanomaterials, nano-polymer and nano-zeolite adsorbents depending on the type of materials, mainly for adsorbing heavy metal ions. Nano-photocatalysts are good at removing bacteria and dyes from water and titanium dioxide (TiO2) is the commonly used material. Nanomembranes are divided into nanofiltration membranes, nanocomposite membranes, nanofiber membranes and aquaporin biomimetic membranes. Metal ions and organic pollutants can be separated by adding different materials into the membrane. The addition of molecular receptors to nanofiber membranes could use in the selective separation of some ions. The recovery of used nano-adsorbents and fouling resistance of nanomembranes are currently the main challenges for nanotechnology in wastewater treatment