Nano Materials Used in Sewage Treatment

Nanomaterials used as Sorbents to treat
Wastewater.
Introduction:
Different contamination is released to wastewater with the rapid industrialization of human society,
including heavy metal ions, organics, bacteria, viruses, and so on, which are serious harmful to human
health. These causes severe health problems in animals and human beings. These wastewater with the
heavy metal ions is discharged into the natural water directly, are not only threat to the aquatic animals
but also harm the human beings through the food chain. Thus, the removal of such toxic metal ions from
waste water is becoming a crucial issue.
To solve these defects of traditional sorbents, nanomaterials are used to remove heavy metal ions in
wastewater. Materials with the particle size between 1nm to 100nm are defined as nanomaterials.
The development of nanoscience and nanotechnology has shown remarkable potential for the remediation
of environmental problems. Nanostructures adsorbents have exhibited much higher efficiency and faster
rates in water treatment.
Nanomaterials for adsorption:
The nanomaterials satisfy the following criterion:
1. The nano sorbents themselves are nontoxic.
2. The sorbents present relatively high sorption capacities and selectively to the low concentration of
pollutants.
3. The adsorbed pollutants could be removed from the surface of the nano adsorbent easily.
4. The sorbents could be infinitely recycled.
A variety of nanomaterials have been studied in the removal of heavy metal ions from the aqueous
solution, and the results indicate that these nanomaterials show high adsorption capacity.
Carbon based nanomaterials:

As one of the inorganic materials, carbon-based nanomaterials are used widely in the field of removal heavy metals due to its
nontoxicity and high sorption capacities. Activated carbon is used as sorbents but it is difficult to remove heavy metals at ppb
levels. With the development of nanotechnology, we use nano sorbents now.
Various types of Nanomaterials

Carbon nanotubes are discovered by Lijima, due to their unique structural, optoelectronic, electronic,
semiconductor, chemical, mechanical and physical properties, have been applied widely to remove heavy
metals in wastewater treatment. To enhance the sorption capacities, CNTs are modified by oxidation and
then combining with other metal ions. The modification of CNTs enhanced significantly the removal
process.
Graphene is another type of carbon material as nano sorbent, which is basically a kind one or several
atomic layered graphite, possesses special two – dimensional structure and good thermal, mechanical
properties.
Nanoparticles from metal or metal oxides:

Nanoparticles formed by metal or metal oxides are another inorganic nanomaterial, which are used to
remove heavy metal ions in wastewater treatment. These provide high surface area and specific affinity.
Metal oxides possess minimal environmental impact and low solubility and no secondary pollution, have
been adopted as sorbents to remove heavy metals.
The nanoflowers have large specific surface area and show availability for the removal of heavy metal ions
from water system. Comparative studies exhibit that titanate nanoflowers possess larger adsorption
capacity and more rapid kinetics than titanate nanotubes or nanowires. Titanate nanoflowers show high
selectivity in the removal of toxic metal ions.
Carbon Nanoflowers
Polymer supported nano sorbents:
The main characteristics that an efficient sorbent with both high capacity and fast rate adsorption should
be functional groups and large surface area. Most current inorganic sorbents rarely have both at the same
time, carbon nanomaterials have high surface area, but without adsorbing functional groups. On the
contrary, organic polymer, polyphenylene diamine, holds a large amount of polyfunctional groups which
can effectively adsorb heavy metal ions, whereas their small specific area and low adsorption rate limit
their application. Therefore, new adsorbents with both the polyfunctional groups and high surface area are
still expected. The development of hybrid sorbents has opened up the new opportunities of their
application in deep removal of heavy metals from water.
Polymer – layered silicate nanocomposites have attracted both academic and industrial attention because
they exhibit dramatic improvement in properties at very low filler contents. This hybrid polymer is used to
remove many hard water ions.
Nanomaterials including traditional inorganic nano adsorbents and polymer supported composites are
used to remove the heavy metal ions in wastewater treatment, due to their size and shape dependent
properties, and gain the good to excellent removal efficiency.
Adsorption Isotherm:
Adsorption is the process in which heavy metals are adsorbed on the solid surface, and the equilibrium is
established when the concentration of heavy metal adsorbed and in water becomes constant.
At equilibrium, the relationship between amounts of heavy metal ions adsorbed and in water is called an
adsorption isotherm. From these isotherms, several adsorption parameters could be calculated.
Langmuir Model:
In this model, adsorption occurs uniformly on the active sites of the adsorbent, and once the active sites
are occupied by adsorbates, the adsorption is naturally terminated at this site.
q = (qmax KLC) / (1 + KLC)
KL -> equilibrium constant

qmax -> maximum adsorption capacity of adsorbent
C -> equilibrium concentration
q -> amount of metal adsorbed at equilibrium
Freundlich adsorption isotherm:
The Freundlich equation is an empirical model allowing for multilayer adsorption on sorbent. The non
linear form of Freundlich model is:
qe = KF Cne
qe -> loading of adsorbate on adsorbent at equilibrium
KF -> indicator of adsorption capacity
n -> adsorption energetics
Ce -> aqueous concentration of adsorbate at equilibrium
Graph of Freundlich Isotherm

Conclusion:
Advances in nanoscale and engineering are providing new opportunities to develop more cost-effective
and environmentally acceptable water treatment technology. Nanomaterials have a number of
physiochemical properties that make them particularly attractive for wastewater purification.
Nanomaterials as sorbents are useful tools for heavy metal removal, due to their unique structure and
surface characteristics. These materials are capable to remove heavy metal ions at low concentration
levels, with quite high selectivity and adsorption capacity.
Although nano sorbents, such as CNTs, nanometal or nanometal oxides, and other organic sorbents, are
used successfully in removal heavy metal ions in wastewater, it still remains several problems. To develop
some environment friendly and inexpensive nanomaterials is also a key to work on.
With the nanotechnology developed, the exploitation of new efficient adsorption materials is essential and
will continue, the future of nanomaterials in removal of heavy metal ions in wastewater management is
quite bright.

Nano Materials Used in Sewage Treatment

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Nanomaterials used as Sorbents to treat

Carbon based nanomaterials:

Various types of Nanomaterials

Nanoparticles from metal or metal oxides:

q = (qmax KLC) / (1 + KLC)

KL -> equilibrium constant

Graph of Freundlich Isotherm

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