New filtration membranes for cleaner industrial water

Many industries need plenty of water for different processes. The water used for these processes compounds of different metals and minerals, meaning that this is not clean water that can be used for drinking.

The scientists from all over the globe are working on potential solutions that could effectively remove various pollutants from industrial water and turn it into a clean water.

The latest interesting research on this topic comes from the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, where researchers were able to develop energy-efficient methods for reuse of water in industrial processes, the ones that also allow extraction of metals and valuable minerals.

The current treatment methods of water in purification plants and industrial facilities require enormous amounts of energy. In most cases,  water recycling and seawater desalination processes use filtration membranes that consume plenty of energy. VTT scientists on the other hand developed intelligent membrane materials, that require significantly less energy, and are based on osmosis technology.

The VTT scientists also developed sensor technology that allows easy and rapid detection of pollutants. They also announced that their technology will be ready for production use within the next few years.

It also has to be said  that many researchers are already testing various biological extraction methods by which metals are recovered from mining, metal and recycling industry waste by using the combination of microbes and chemical reactions. These new methods and technologies are predicted to appear on the market within the next few years.

We all know that clean water is becoming scarcer with each new day. Cleaning industrial water is certainly something world should aspire to in order to tackle the clean water issue.

Can carbon nanotubes clean polluted water?

Water pollution is big issue in many countries of the world, particularly developing countries. One of the possible solutions which could be used to clean polluted water are also carbon nanotubes, according to the scientists from the University of Vienna.

The Austrian scientists have discovered that water pollutants have very high affinity for carbon nanotubes which means that pollutants could be removed from polluted water by filters made of this carbon nanotubes.

There are several advantages of carbon nanotubes which could be quite useful to clean polluted water, such as for instance a very large surface area that has a high capacity to retain large amount of pollutants.

Nanotechnology is still a brand new technology that has just started developing and despite having enormous potential will still need time and lot of studies before being widely and cost-effectively used.

This study is really only a beginning and scientists still need to find many answers in order to successfully use carbon nanotubes to clean polluted water.

First of all scientists need to learn the behavior of carbon nanotubes in the environment. This is essential before they can be used in water filters to clean polluted water.

The efficacy of each water filter varies according to the quantity and type of contaminants present in water. If there are many different pollutants in water some pollutants may not attach to carbon nanotubes so scientists still need to heavily research the mechanisms of sorption.

Around one billion people in the world lack access to safe drinking water. Who knows, in years to come, perhaps nanotubes will change this negative number for better.

Water purification – The best water pollution solution

Water pollution is taking heavy toll in many corners of the world, with millions of people across the globe dying because of different waterborne diseases. Harmful chemicals and other pollutants have degraded the quality of water in many parts of the world, and world is finding it very hard to tackle the ever-growing impact of water pollution.

Water purification is one of the methods to at least temporarily reduce the impact of water pollution. Water purification refers to different processes that are used to remove chemicals and other pollutants from the water, mostly with the purpose to create drinking water, though water purification can be also for a variety of other purposes.

In cases where water pollution levels aren't high water purification can be achieved with simple processes such as boiling or filtering but the more serious cases of water pollution require more complex methods.

Millions of lives around the globe could be saved if people were to use processes such as chlorination, filtration, and solar disinfection to treat water at their homes but the implementation of these relatively simple methods is happening very slowly in developing countries, resulting in large number of deaths from waterborne diseases.

The more complex water purification methods are usually done in water purification plants. Water purification plants use many different processes to remove pollutants from the water such as flocculation, sedimentation, different types of filtration as well as many other mechanical and biological techniques.

Disinfection is usually the last process of water purification. The purpose of disinfection is to remove any remaining harmful microbes by adding disinfectant chemicals because otherwise harmful microbes could pass through water filters and create serious threat to human health.

The usual disinfection method involves the usage of chlorine as the disinfectant though many developed countries have lately started using chloramine instead. Chloramine despite not being as powerful oxidant as chlorine is has one major advantage over chlorine by providing longer lasting effects. The process of creating chloramine from the chlorine is very simple, all it takes is adding some ammonia to the water after the addition of chlorine.

As said before the main goal of water purification is to produce safe drinking water. There are both domestic as well as international standards for drinking water. Water purification is definitely the best method to create the safe drinking water, and safe drinking water could save million of lives across the globe.