Nanoadsorbents in nanofilter membrane

Nanofiltration is one of the fascinating tools for water/wastewater treatment, which has properties falling between ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis. Nanoadsorbents are also used for the same purpose, owing to properties such as better chemical and thermal stability, large surface area, and a large number of functional groups with the possibility for synthesizing tailer-made nanoadsorbents, and superior performance compared with the traditional adsorbents. However, difficulties related to the separation of nanoadsorbents from the aqueous phase after the adsorption process is one of the major limitations restricting the application of nanoadsorbents. The development of nanoadsorbent-embedded nanofilter membranes (NENMs) can overcome these limitations by providing the dual performance of adsorption and filtration approaches at the same time and solve issues such as degradation, scaling, low flux rate, biofouling, and selectivity of nanofiltration. This chapter, therefore, focused on the basic understanding of NENMs, the types of nanomaterial used in its fabrication, their instrumental characterization, their properties and characteristics, and their environmental applications.