Nanomaterials based drinking water purification: Comparative study with a conventional water purification process

Abstract

One of the ways of fully securing the presence of fresh water is water treatment process. Nanomaterials and nanotechnology offers an innovative solution for water treatment. In this study, physical, chemical and microbiological improvement rates of raw water were analyzed after filtration with graphene oxide. Graphene oxide’s water treatment performance; silver nanoparticles, silver nanoparticles & graphene oxide composites that are commonly used in water treatment were compared with a traditional treatment method. When compared to the traditional method, there were improvements of 50 %, 40.7 %, 86.8 % and 45.5 % for color, TIC, TOC and hardness properties, respectively in water treatment by GO-based filtration with solid liquid ratio of 0.7 % (v/v). In water treatment with GO-Ag based filtration, 39.8 %, 69.8 %, 10.3 % and 28.6 % of improvements were obtained for TIC, TOC, hardness and LSI value compared to the conventional method. Both GO at 0.7 % (v/v) solid-liquid ratio and GO-Ag nanocomposites were successful in the number of total viable microorganisms and inhibiting microorganisms such as Escherichia coli fecal (gaita-infected), Salmonella typhi, Enterococcus faecalis, Pseudomona aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus. Among the studied parameters GO-Ag nanocomposites found to be the most suitable for drinking water treatment.