Antimicrobial nanomaterials for water disinfection

Abstract

Water treatment is important to protect people from water-borne diseases. Traditional chemical disinfection creates a lot of disinfection by-products which are harmful to human health. Thus, there is a growing need for new water disinfection methods to effectively move pathogens from water sources. Nanotechnology has the potential to meet the challenge to provide new water treatment methods. In this chapter, we introduce several antimicrobial nanomaterials including oligodynamic metals (e.g., nAg), photocatalytic semiconductors (e.g., TiO2), and carbon nanomaterials (e.g., CNT) and their disinfection mechanisms. Moreover, we use cases to illustrate how these materials are designed and used in real water treatment devices.