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Nanocellulose water treatment membranes and filters: a review
Author(s) -
Mautner Andreas
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
polymer international
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.592
H-Index - 105
eISSN - 1097-0126
pISSN - 0959-8103
DOI - 10.1002/pi.5993
Subject(s) - nanocellulose , cellulose , water treatment , membrane , nanocomposite , filtration (mathematics) , sewage treatment , regenerated cellulose , materials science , bacterial cellulose , chemistry , polymer science , chemical engineering , nanotechnology , environmental engineering , environmental science , organic chemistry , mathematics , engineering , biochemistry , statistics
This review covers the use of nanocelluloses in water treatment applications with particular focus on membranes and filters made either entirely from (nano)cellulose or in composite approaches. Nanocelluloses are among the emerging materials of this century, having found an abundance of potential applications in the fields of composites, medicine, functional additives or water treatment. Water treatment applications in particular have received significant academic and commercial attention, with a large variety of approaches developed in order to address arguably one of the largest problems that humanity is confronted with in the 21st century: clean water. In this regard, treatment of both potable water and wastewater is of high importance. The reason for the viability of nanocelluloses as base material relies upon their high specific surface area and abundance of OH groups that already exhibit certain attraction toward pollutants carrying ionic structures or dyes and also can be easily modified to significantly increase the affinity of nanocelluloses toward these pollutants. Nanocelluloses in their various forms (cellulose nanocrystals, cellulose nanofibrils, bacterial cellulose) have been applied in water treatment, with membranes and filters (size exclusion, e.g. for nanoparticle filtration, or affinity membranes) as well as adsorbents (e.g. heavy metal ions, dyes, nitrates) being the most studied. © 2020 The Author. Polymer International published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.