Inorganic engineered nanoparticles in drinking water treatment: a critical review

Abstract

The interest of the scientific community in the potential applications of inorganic engineered nanoparticles for drinking water treatment is continuously increasing. This review paper is an up to date summary of recent research progress in this field with respect to the removal of heavy metals, microorganisms and organic pollutants. In parallel, a critical investigation on the applicability of developed nanomaterials is attempted, considering the economic viability, environmental safety and sustainability of proposed processes. On this, the manuscript discusses issues like the stability and fate of engineered nanoparticles during and after use whereas it suggests a generalized approach for excluding reliable and comparable results by laboratory experiments. AbstractThis review summarizes recent research in the field of inorganic engineered nanoparticles development with direct or potential interest for drinking water treatment. The incorporation of engineered nanoparticles in drinking water treatment technologies against the removal of heavy metals, microorganisms and organic pollutants appears as a very dynamic branch of nanotechnology. Nanoparticles owe their potential on the high specific surface area and surface reactivity compared to conventional bulk materials. Depending on the mechanism of uptake, nanoparticles can be designed to establish high selectivity against specific pollutants and provide the required efficiency for application. However, despite early encouraging results, nanoparticles meet a number of limitations to get promoted and become part of large-scale water treatment plants. The most important is their availability in the required large quantities and their efficiency to fulfil the strict regulations for drinking water consumption and environmental safety. Both deal with the particles preparation cost and the cost of treatment operation with respect to the increase of supplied water price for the consumers. Under this view, this work attempts to evaluate reported studies according to their possibility to meet reliable requirements of water technology and also suggests an experimental approach to allow validation of tested nanoparticles.

Enhancing Photocatalytic Degradation of Methyl Blue Using PVP-Capped and Uncapped CdSe Nanoparticles

“…Environmental concerns are found everywhere in the world, and water treatment is an important aspect of life. Various contaminants can be found in water among which are organic pollutants that are of serious concern [4][5][6]. Nanoparticles possess new features such as size tunability and new mechanisms which are part of promising technology.…”

“…ere are so many investigations done in order to improve the performance of TiO 2 as a catalyst. Other types of materials are also investigated with attempts to bring new features [5,6,8,12]. CdSe nanoparticles with tuned band gap energy can be synthesized and may play an important role in photocatalysis besides other applications such as laser diodes, catalysis, light-emitting diodes, solar cells, and biological labeling [13].…”

“…Nanoparticles possess new features such as size tunability and new mechanisms which are part of promising technology. erefore, nanoparticles can be used as photocatalysts to facilitate the degradation of organic pollutants such as dyes upon UV-Vis irradiation [6][7][8].…”

Superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticle-loaded polyacrylonitrile nanofibers with enhanced arsenate removal performance

“…Nanoparticles released during the treatment process may pose a health risk, as the toxicity effect to the end user is not well known. 18 To avoid these problems, the dispersion and fixation of iron oxide nanoparticles over porous supports has been a common strategy in the development of safe and efficient arsenic adsorbents. [19][20][21][22] Among the several available supporting materials, electrospun polymeric nanofibers present high surface area able to interact easily with the inorganic particles and improve the contact time with the contaminated media.…”

Novel Palm Fatty Acid Functionalized Magnetite Nanoparticles for Magnetic Solid-Phase Extraction of Trace Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons from Environmental Samples

“…Rapid separation of the analyte of interest from interference can be achieved by applying an external magnet to recover the saturated adsorbent. Currently, magnetite Fe 3 O 4 nanoparticles MNPs are widely used as a MSPE sorbent due to its superparamagnetic property 20 , high surface area available for reaction, effective contact, and good uptake capacity 21,22 .…”