Indian Journal of Research in Pharmacy and Biotechnology

Jyothirmayee et.al ISSN: 2321-5674(Print); 2320 – 3471(Online)

Innovations in Nanotechnology in Water purification
CA Jyothirmayee1*, K. Sreelatha2, Y.Hanumantha Rao2
1
Ch SD St Theresa’s Autonomous College for women, Eluru, Andhra Pradesh, India
2
Andhra Loyola College, Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, India
*Corresponding author
ABSTRACT
A grand challenge of the 21st century is providing clean and potable water to meet human needs. By
population growth, global climate change, and water quality deterioration worldwide, water supply struggles to
keep up with the fast growing demand. The need of the hour is the technological innovation to enable integrated
water management. In advancing water and wastewater treatment Nanotechnology holds great potential to
improve treatment efficiency as well as to augment water supply through safe use of unconventional water
sources. In this article we review recent development for water and wastewater treatment using Nanotechnology.
Nanoscopic materials such as carbon nanotubes and alumina fibers for nanofiltration, exploits water purification
using nanotechnology. It can be explained with the existence of nanoscopic pores in zeolite filtration
membranes, as well as nanocatalysts and magnetic nanoparticles. Based on titanium oxide nanowires or
palladium nanoparticles i.e., Nan sensors, are used for analytical detection of contaminants in water samples.
KEYWORDS: Nanotechnology; Nanomaterials; Water and wastewater treatment; Water reuse
1. INTRODUCTION that inhibited their use in affected areas. Over the years
researchers have looked at nano-enabled technologies to
Clean drinking water is a basic human need. After
find an apt solution to this long standing problem. Many
so much of advancement in science and technology, the
companies have adopted these techniques to solve
pity is 78 Crores of people around the world do not have
technical challenges associated with water purification
access to clean drinking water even today. In other words,
using conventional systems.
one in every nine people in the earth suffering from
limited accessibility to safe drinking water. Also, around Five most popular water purification techniques
0.25 Crores of the people in the world do not have inspired by nanotechnology:
adequate access to sanitation due to limitations in clean
a. Adsorption into nanomaterials:
water supply.
Adsorption commonly referred to the process of
Six major classes of water pollutants: removing of the harmful pollutant in water
treatment, from the water by absorbing it in to the surface
 Biodegradable plant debris and animal waste
of a nanomaterial. For removal of organic pollutants
 Soil, silt and Adsorption technique is heavily used. Nano
materials have high concentration of sorption sites,
 Chemicals such as oil, pesticides, solvents, extremely high specific surface area, tunable pore sizes
gasoline and surface chemistry which gives them a large boost in
 Nitrates and phosphates adsorption rate and capacity. Carbon nano materials, nano
fibers and metal oxide nano materials are the mostly
 Heavy metals such as Arsenic, Lead and researched materials for water purification by adsorption.
Mercury
b. Photocatalytic water treatment: Nanomaterial that
 Bacteria and viruses can absorb light and divert the absorbed energy to drive a
Potable water may not be completely free from these chemical reaction are a special class of Photocatalysts .
contaminants. However, concentration levels of these Titanium dioxide and Zinc oxide in Nanoscale are good
components should be comparatively low so that they examples of photocatalytic nanoparticles and are among
wouldn’t cause a short term or long term health challenges most widely used materials in both research and practical
and problems. Conventional water treatment technologies applications. If a continuous supply of light is present,
such as filtration, UV water purification, chemical photogenerated electrons and holes can completely
treatment (water treatment tablet) and desalination remain reduce and oxidize a nearby organic molecule to most
largely limited to industrial processes due to inherent elementary, carbon dioxide and water.
complexities associated with these processes. Complexity c. Disinfection of water with nanomaterials:
of these systems and cost efficiency are two major factors Nanomaterials such as nano cerium oxide, nano zinc
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 Indian Journal of Research in Pharmacy and Biotechnology
Jyothirmayee et.al ISSN: 2321-5674(Print); 2320 – 3471(Online)
oxide, nano silver, nano titanium dioxide, carbon associated with control and containment. Nevertheless,
nanotubes and fullerenes show strong disinfection nanoengineered materials offer great potential for water
abilities without mechanisms involving strong oxidation. innovations in the coming decades, in particular for
Therefore, these nanomaterials show lower tendencies to decentralized treatment systems, point-of-use devices,
form toxic byproducts. and heavily degradable contaminants.
d. Nanomembrane filtration: One of the major REFERENCES
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2. CONCLUSION
To ensure a high quality of drinking water there
is a dare need for advanced water technologies, in order
to eliminate micropollutants. Nanoengineered materials,
such as nanoadsorbents, nanometals, nanomembranes,
and photocatalysis, offer the potential for novel water
technologies that can be easily adapted. The most
important advantages of nanomaterials when compared
with conventional water technologies is that enable both
particle retention and elimination of contaminants.
Nanomaterials enable higher process efficiency due to
their unique characteristics.
However, there are several doubts that need to be
addressed. The full effects of exposure to nanomaterials
from handling them at water treatment plants or drinking
them in treated water are yet unknown. But we can make
a distinction, in terms of risk assessment, between active
and passive nanoparticles. Passive particles, such as a
coating, are likely to present no more or less a risk than
other manufacturing processes. But active nanoparticles
that can move around the environment lead to risks

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