Emerging Potable Water Technologies

Abstract

Water is essential to keep up life, especially safe drinking water is one of the first priorities. As water quality is important, many nations endeavor to guard the water and to increase access to potable water. Fortification of water supplies from contamination is the earliest stripe of defence. Water purification is very important aspect, presently there are number of drinking water technologies available mostly based on ion exchange, ultra filtration and reverse osmosis techniques, but still about five million people die annually from water born diseases. The objective of this review is to provide direction on the chemical safety of drinking-water and also monitoring of chemicals in drinking-water. Water treatment potential technologies can solve diverse drinking water issues in case of chemical contamination, which is the second objective. The purpose of this review is to make survey of currently available and future emerging technologies for drinking water. Several purification techniques have been adopted to meet the standards. There is a necessity of wide-ranging global approach to tackle the problem of water pollution devastating thousand of lives annually rather than to develop nuclear and biological weapons. This document will also be useful to public health authorities, those responsible for setting standards and for surveillance of drinking-water quality, and to water supply agencies responsible for water quality management.

Lead: Toxicological Profile, Pollution Aspects and Remedial Solutions

“…Some of these anionic chemical pollutants are more often found in ground water, though surface water can also be impacted. In order to plan new water supply projects, especially to ground water resources, contamination from lead, arsenic, fluoride, phosphate, and nitrate should be given priority [5,7,8,10]. Subsequently, second priority is to be given to metals (principally iron and manganese).…”

“…Detrimental heavy metals must be removed from the environment in particular water so as to protect the human beings and the environment [2-4, 6, 22]. To accomplish the increased stringent environmental regulations and maximum permissible limit of contaminant in water, a wide range of treatment technologies such as chemical precipitation, coagulation flocculation, flotation, ion exchange, membrane filtration, electrochemical treatment technologies, adsorption [5,21], and bio-adsorption are most frequently examined for the mitigation of heavy metals from wastewater [2,8]. Certain merits and demerits of various physicochemical methods used for the mitigation of Pb 2+ from wastewater are mentioned in Table 2.…”

“…This is quite cheaper than the other known methods; besides ppb levels, Pb 2+ ion removal can be achieved at large-scale workups. In fact, ion exchangers are natural materials namely certain clays, functionalized porous, gel polymer, zeolite, montmorillonite, and soil humus or some synthesized resins that hold positive/cation as well negative/anion exchanging parts with the other ions in solution owing to a better affinity from the surroundings [5,7,8,10,18,23]. Certain artificial matrixes like organic resins are usual for ion exchangers used for the removal of Pb 2+ ions from water/wastewater.…”

“…Certain artificial matrixes like organic resins are usual for ion exchangers used for the removal of Pb 2+ ions from water/wastewater. However, such man-made ion exchangers are disadvantageous as nontolerant high level of metal due to matrix fouls [1,5,7,8,10,18,23]. Furthermore, synthetic/natural ion exchangers are nonselective and extremely susceptible to altered pH conditions.…”

“…Ground water is purer and safer than surface water due to earth covering that works as a natural filter, which is the major source for domestic purposes in the developing country like India [2,5]. In fact, few decades back, water seems to be odorless, free from turbidity, and good from the esthetic point of view and considered to be pure and unpolluted.…”