ABSTRACT
The increasing global need for clean water has led to the exploration of new materials for filtering water. Nanotechnology has been widely applied for generating composite membranes for advanced water purification techniques like microfiltration, ultrafiltration, nanofiltration and reverse osmosis. The incorporation of nanoscale materials in the membranes for filtration led to the efficient removal of contaminating microbes, heavy metals, hazardous dyes and other xenobiotic compounds. In this chapter, the development of nanocomposite membranes that involve the incorporation of nanoparticulate nonmetallic materials like carbon nanotubes and graphene oxide, metals like silver, metal oxides like titanium dioxide, zinc oxide, copper oxide, silicon dioxide and iron oxide is discussed. The fabrication of complex membranes with exotic nanomaterials to ensure the reduction of biofouling, chemical oxygen demand and microbial load is also elaborated. Furthermore, the future scope of developing large-scale water purification technology using nanocomposite membrane is mentioned, which can be a powerful complementary and alternative strategy to the existing methods.
