Effects of nanoparticles on the ultrafiltration of surface water

Use of filtration techniques to study environmental fate of engineered metallic nanoparticles: Factors affecting filter performance

“…In October 2013, the Woodrow Wilson database had already listed 1628 nanotechnology-based market available consumer products in their online inventory compared to only 212 in March 2006, representing an increase by approximately 670% [36]. However, the increasing production and use of ENPs in such applications will also inevitably result in their (unintentional) discharge into aquatic environments (e.g., surface water or groundwater), where they could pose a risk to living organisms and human health (e.g., via drinking water consumption or transfer through the food chain) [27,41,32]. For instance, ENPs have already been demonstrated to be released from consumer goods [3], during washing of textiles [4,14,40], and via surface run-off from coated faç ades [20,19], and have been detected in effluents from wastewater treatment plants [21,39], indicating that conventional (waste)water treatment processes might be insufficient in removing ENPs [34,41].…”

“…On the other hand, nanoparticlemembrane interactions (e.g., sorption) or membrane fouling could lead to retention of particulates that are smaller than the filter pore size [22,41,18]. Ultrafiltration (UF) is already being extensively applied during drinking water treatment, and is anticipated to be an effective removal strategy of ENPs from drinking water sources as nanoparticles or their aggregates are often too large to pass through UF filters [27,42]. In contrast to MF, where the retention capability is basically expressed through size exclusion from a well-defined pore size of the filter membrane (>0.1 m), UF membranes are characterized by their molecular weight cut-off (MWCO), which refers to the approximate molecular weight of a compound that is retained for 90% by the filter membrane [41].…”

Titania and Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles: Coating with Polydopamine and Encapsulation within Lecithin Liposomes—Water Treatment Analysis by Gel Filtration Chromatography with Fluorescence Detection

“…They used fluorescence correlation spectroscopy to determine that each liposome encapsulated an average of three quantum dots. Hence, both studies have indicated GQDs can potentially serve the purpose of monitoring the nanoparticle-loaded liposomes to track their complete removal from treated water by ultrafiltration using the membrane separation technology [19,64,65]. …”

Use of carbon black nanoparticles to mitigate membrane fouling in ultrafiltration of river water

“…Although several modes of fouling took place over the course of filtration, true cake fouling occurs at the later stage of filtration [14,26,27]. Therefore, Eq.…”

“…For instance, polysulfone nanoparticles reduced fouling during batch-UF of lake water [13]. We reported recently that carbon black (CB) nanoparticles adsorbed NOM and prevented the internal pore constriction of a UF membrane from early in the process of filtration [14]. However, no study has compared the performance of nanoparticles with conventional adsorbents such as PAC at reducing membrane fouling in filtering natural water.…”