Asian Journal of Water, Environment and Pollution, Vol. 16, No. 4 (2019), pp. 81–86.
DOI 10.3233/AJW190051
Applications of Nanotechnology in Water
and Wastewater Treatment: A Review
Nadeem A. Khan*, Saif Ullah Khan1, Sirajuddin Ahmed, Izharul Haq Farooqi1,
Aastha Dhingra, Arshad Hussain2 and Fazlollah Changani3
Department of Civil Engineering, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India
1
Department of Civil Engineering, Z.H.C.E.T., Aligarh Muslim University, India
2
Civil Engineering Section, University Polytechnic, AMU, Aligarh, India
3
Department of Environmental Health Engineering, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Iran
* [email protected]
Received December 8, 2018; revised and accepted May 14, 2019
Abstract: Water pollution due to heavy metals, organic and inorganic matters and biological organisms is a matter
of serious concern all around the globe. Thus, providing clean and safe drinking water at a reasonable cost has
become a challenge nowadays. Therefore the importance of technological advancement to facilitate integrated water
management cannot be overruled. Due to this, emergence of nanotechnology has delivered pioneering solution
to problems in the field of medicine, engineering, physics, chemistry, etc. Nanotechnology is basically the world
of science employing nanoparticle for various engineering applications including environmental remediation.
Among the nano-based techniques, use of nanoadsorbents, nanomembranes, and nano-photocatalysts has been
quite promising in water and wastewater treatment, at both small and commercial scale. Nanoparticles have a
higher aspect ratio, larger pore-volume, electrostatics, a higher specific surface area which is quite useful in
processes like sorption, catalysis, censoring in the field of water treatment having higher efficiency, flexibility,
being multifunctional and affordability. Considering these aspects, nanotechnology has proved to be an innovative,
eco-friendly and an advanced treatment technique. The main limitation in applying nanotechnology is that uptil
now most of the researches are confined to laboratory or pilot scale only. In this review, we have discussed in
brief about a few recently used nanomaterials that are presently employed in treating water, with a focus on nano-
based adsorbents and filtration membranes.
Key words: Nanotechnology, heavy metals, water treatment, nano filtration, nanoadsorbent.
Introduction boom worldwide, demand of water has increased many
folds (Khan et al., 2015). It is essential to treat water
Worldwide, growing demand of water has worsened due especially in affected areas where treatment facilities
to population growth, climate change, and degrading are lacking or doesn’t exist.
quality of water. Providing clean and affordable water Current water and wastewater techniques have
is the utmost need of this century. As per report of their limitations in terms of water quality as per
W.H.O. 2012, more than 780 million people face the stringent water regulations. These conventional
shortage of safe and clean drinkable water. Due to treatment techniques have one or the other limitations
increasing population, industrialization and economic (some are listed in Table 1) (Das et al., 2014). In order
*Corresponding Author
82 Nadeem A. Khan et al.
Table 1: Conventional treatment techniques and their limitations
S. No. Type of treatment Limitations
1. Distillation High requirement of energy, water. Pollutant boiling point >100°C difficult to remove.
2. Biological Microorganisms difficult to control and by-product damages cells, not cost effective
treatment and is time taking.
3. Ultraviolet Expensive method and inactivated due to turbidity, Ineffective due to heavy metals
treatment and ineffective in inorganic contaminants removal.
4. Ultrafiltration Not remove dissolved inorganics, high energy requirement, difficult in cleaning.
5. Chemical Excess reagents needed, low-quality mixture, Inactive adverse conditions, selective
transformation method.
6. Coagulation and Low efficiency and pH dependent.
flocculation
to understand and solve this crisis of water quality, have a high ratio of surface to volume that results in
new technologies and sustainable methods are needed good interaction with pollutants and/or microorganism
to be developed. Due to higher treatment efficiency, (Theron et al., 2008). Nanotechnology takes these
nanotechnology emerges as a promising technology, existing treatment processes to new heights. Nano-
thereby enabling cost effectiveness with certain material dimensions are measured generally within one
limitations and as an acceptable treatment technique. hundred nm in dimension and contain materials with the
The involvement of nanotechnology in treatment high surface area and considerably modified properties
has envisaged us with high performance, affordable (Pillay et al., 2009). Thus nanotechnology has provided
wastewater treatment and ending the reliability on tremendous opportunities in water treatment field along
infrastructures (Qu et al., 2013). Nanotechnology not with sustainability (Diasa et al., 2007).
only enabled to overcome the limitation of conventional The nano shape enables unique physico-chemical
treatment technologies but is also providing sustainable properties like large surface area and high specific
and economic utilization of available sources. affinity. This property has shown higher removal of
Nanoparticles exhibit unique properties such as high organics, inorganics involving heavy metal removal
sp. surface area, reactivity towards pollutants, high from wastewater. The growing interest and in depth
functionalization, adsorbing properties etc. in waste exploration in nanotechnology has aided in synthesis
or wastewater treatment (Theron et al., 2008). At the and development of new nanoparticles and binary
nano-size level, materials are characterized by different composites involving magnetic nanoparticles, carbon
properties which are generally enhanced as compared to nanotubes, titanium based nanoparticles, metal and Fe
their respective standard size counterparts. For instance, based nano-composites and activated carbon (Ponder
at the nano-scale level the ratio of surface area to et al., 2000). A few commonly used nano-adsorbents
particle size is quite high. By employing nanocomposite for water and wastewater treatment along with their
filters and membranes and other properties improves specific properties are shown in Table 2 (Xiaolei et al.,
the efficiency as well as life of treatment systems. 2013). The main advantages of them are high adsorption
Treatment using nanotechnology for contaminants like capacity and superior efficiency, their high reusability,
metals, ions, organic as well as inorganic, pathogenic synthesis at room temperatures, super magnetism,
substances has vast scope. quantum confinement effect as well as eco-toxicity.
Nanotechnology-facilitated water and wastewater This review will focus on the applicability of different
treatment guarantees to not solely overcome major
nanoscale materials and their uses in treating wastewater
challenges featured by existing treatment technologies;
polluted by organic and inorganic compounds, heavy
however conjointly improves treatment capabilities
metals, bacteria and viruses. Moreover, the use of
that might permit economic use of unconventional
various nanoadsorbents and nano-based filtration
water treatment techniques to expand and make full
membranes is also examined.
usage of the available water sources. Nano-materials
Applications of Nanotechnology in Water and Wastewater Treatment: A Review 83
Table 2: Commonly used nano-adsorbents for water and wastewater treatment, their specific
properties and applications
S. No. Nano particle Properties of nano-particle Technology use
1. Carbon-based Large specific surface area, high adsorption Contaminant preconcentration/
nanotubes sites, contaminant interactions, changeable detection, adsorption of recalcitrant
surface chemistry, easy reuse. contaminants.
2. Nano-Ag A wide range of antimicrobial activity Anti-biofouling membranes
capacity, less harmful to humans
3. Nano-magnetite Can change surface chemistry, Forward osmosis
superparamagnetic
4. Nano-TiO2 Photocatalytic behaviour with UV and Photocatalytic reactors, solar
visible light, less harmful to humans, Stable, disinfection systems
economical
5. Derivatives of Photocatalytic activity in the solar spectrum, Photocatalytic reactors, disinfection
Fullerene high selectivity systems
Role of Nano-materials in Industrial adsorbents possessing higher metal-binding capacities
Wastewater Treatment has aggravated (Leung et al., 2000). Nano-sized
materials for removal of heavy metal ions should have
Conventional adopted treatment techniques for water certain distinctive properties like, reasonable cost,
pollutants include reverse osmosis, coagulation- higher metal adsorption ability and the capability to
flocculation and filtration which are generally not switch over high valence ions to low valence or zero
efficient in removing all the target pollutants effectively. valence ions, thus lowering toxicity. The materials
Therefore, there is a need for resilient techniques showing these characteristics include nano-iron based
and membranes to be used in water treatment and its oxides, silicates and porous zeolites. In some of the
purification. recent studies, binary nano-sized iron based oxide
With the aim of refining the conventional treatment nanoparticles were synthesized and successfully applied
processes, the applicability of nanomaterial was to remove hexavalent chromium, arsenic and lead from
explored to devise separating media of high superiority water at low pH (Khan et al., 2016; Zhang et al., 2013;
in terms of reactivity and output (Bellona et al., 2007). Khan et al., 2017).
Nanofiltration has been incorporated at several treatment Many types of materials are nowadays used as
plants to yield effluent having low concentrations of sorption sites in nano-particles and act as separation
pollutants (Bruggen et al., 2008). In addition, the use of media for arresting heavy metals like Cd2+ using nitric
nanomaterials in disinfecting water and bio-remediating acid, hydrogen peroxide, etc. (Li et al., 2003). These
wastewater has gained recognition (Hu et al., 2005; are oxidized in order to generate high adsorption
Mohan et al., 2007). For example, nanomaterials like capacity towards metal ions and have faster kinetics in
TiO2 are among the favourable nanocatalysts that were associate with many functional groups like hydroxyl,
tried for antimicrobial action and proved quite effective. and carbonyls (Vukovic et al., 2010). The oxidized
Few other developments in nanotechnology nanotube had shown higher efficiency when pH is well
applications include: nanofiltration of biologically above the isoelectric point (Lau et al., 2015). Many of
treated wastewater from the paper and pulp production them are used for effective removal of Cu2+, Pb2+, Cd2+,
plants (Manttari et al., 2006); the degradation of organic and Zn2+ also.
dyes by ZnO nanoparticles (Ullah et al., 2008); and Many studies are available in literature for
treatment of effluent from molasses distillery using applicability of nano-adsorbents in removing of toxic
nano-membranes (Satyawali et al., 2008). elements like As, Cr, Cu, Pb and Ni in ionic forms
(Qi et al., 2014). Magnetite nanorods are extensively
Nano-based Adsorbents used for removal of Fe2+, Pb2+, Cd2+, and Cu2+. It was
Adsorption has become one of the surrogative method also observed in some cases that nanorods show better
of treatment, nowadays, as the search for low-cost adsorption capacity in comparison to nanotubes, for
84 Nadeem A. Khan et al.
example in case of Zn+2 and Pb+2 removal but lower attained (Linder et al., 2006). In a somewhat parallel
in case of Cu+2. Some other types are also available approach, the nanostructure surface alteration of
such as super-paramagnetic nanoparticle having faster microporous ceramics was attained by for efficient virus
and selective adsorption towards Hg+2 (Shipley et al., separation (Wegmann et al., 2008). The method involved
2013). In the study of nanohematite it was observed that coating the internal surface area with a colloidal nano-
surface having hydroxyl group, allows the adsorption dispersion of hydrated yttrium oxide. Further, it was
of heavy metals ions and proves that the adsorption of thermally treated to attain an electropositive Y2O3
Pb+2 and Cd+2 is endothermic, while Zn+2 is exothermic coated surface. The altered nanostructure filters were
(Tu et al., 2012). successful in removing 99.9% of 25 nanometre dia MS2
Although, having very high adsorption capacities, bacteriophages from feeded water having pH 5 to 9.
they have certain limitation also like high production Moreover, membranes for water treatment made
cost, technical hurdles, toxicity of carbon nanotubes, up of nano-reactive material are synthesized. These
difficulty in bulk volume production, etc. A generalized membranes decompose pollutants such as 4-nitrophenol
schematic diagram for nano-adsorption mechanism is (Dotzauer et al., 2006) and bind metal ions (Hollman
depicted in Figure 1(a). et al., 2004) in aqueous solution. Polysulfonate UF
membranes loaded with silver nanoparticles proved
Nano-based Membranes to be effective against E. coli K12 and P. mendocina
Membrane filtration has a noteworthy role to play bacteria strains and exhibited noteworthy enhancement
in remediating water from various pollutants. In in removing virus (Zodrow et al., 2009).
the last decade, the development of ceramic and Simultaneous filteration of organic contaminants
polymeric membranes has positively affected on the along with photocatalytic oxidation was achieved
use of membranes. However, fouling of membrane by fabricating TiO2 nanowire membranes (Xiao et
is a major problem in the filtration process that al., 2008). In another study, TiO2/Al2O3 composite
poses a grave concern challenging the feasibility of membranes were devised using extrusion technique
membrane use. Nanotechnology is quite useful in the and sol–gel/slip casting technique, proved successful in
fabrication of water purifying membranes. In a recent decomposing Direct Black168 dye (Zhang et al., 2006).
study, production of water filtration nanostructured Application of nanotechnology based membrane
membranes using nanomaterials like carbon nanotubes filters will further gain acceptance in future, due to
and nanoreactive membranes was reported (Theron et their high efficiency in removing inorganic, organic
al., 2008). In another study, an approach to enhance and biological impurities, with metal selectivity as well
membrane efficiency, while mitigating fouling, was as, being durable, low cost and resistant to fouling. A
carried out by structuring the membrane surfaces at generalized schematic diagram for nano-membrane
the nano and molecular scale (Cohen et al., 2006). The filtration that retains the specific pollutants is illustrated
structural management of nanofiltration membranes in Figure 1(b).
to make a surface with salt rejection selectivity was
Figure 1: (a) Mechanism showing Nano-adsorption and (b) Nano-membrane filtration.
Applications of Nanotechnology in Water and Wastewater Treatment: A Review 85
Critical Assessment and Conclusion Bruggen, B.V.D., Manttari, M. and M. Nystrom (2008).
Drawbacks of applying nanofiltration and how to avoid
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