Sorbent Nanotechnologies for Water Cleaning
2017-07
Loading...
View/Download File
Persistent link to this item
Statistics
View StatisticsJournal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Title
Sorbent Nanotechnologies for Water Cleaning
Authors
Published Date
2017-07
Publisher
Type
Thesis or Dissertation
Abstract
Despite decades of regulatory efforts to mitigate water pollution, many chemicals, particularly heavy metals, still present risks to human health. In addition to direct exposure, certain metals such as mercury threaten public health due to its persistence, bioaccumulation and bioamplification throughout the food chain. A number of U.S. Federal and State regulations have been established to reduce the levels of mercury in water. Activated carbon (AC) has been widely explored for the removal of mercury. However, AC suffers from many limitations inherent to its chemical properties, and it becomes increasingly challenging to meet current and future regulations by simply modifying AC to enhance its performance. Recently, the performance of nanosorbents have been studied in order to removal pollutants. Nanosorbents utilize the ultra-high reactive surface of nanoparticles for rapid, effective and even permanent sequestration of heavy metals from water and air, thus showed promising results as compared to AC. The goal of this thesis research is to develop nanomaterial-based sorbents for the removal of mercury from water. It describes the development of a new solid-support assisted growth of selenium nanoparticles, their use for water remediation, and the development of a new nanoselenium-based sorbent sponge for fast and efficient mercury removal. The nanoselenium sorbent not only shows irreversible interaction with mercury but also exhibits remarkable properties by overcoming the limitations of AC. The nanoselenium sponge was shown to remove mercury to undetectable levels within one minute. This new sponge technology would have an impact on inspiring new stringent regulations and lowering costs to help industries meet regulatory requirements, which will ultimately help improve air and water quality, aquatic life and public health.
Keywords
Description
University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. July 2017. Major: Bioproducts/Biosystems Science Engineering and Management. Advisor: Abdennour Abbas. 1 computer file (PDF); x, 96 pages.
Related to
Replaces
License
Collections
Series/Report Number
Funding information
Isbn identifier
Doi identifier
Previously Published Citation
Suggested citation
Ahmed, Snober. (2017). Sorbent Nanotechnologies for Water Cleaning. Retrieved from the University Digital Conservancy, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/190479.
Content distributed via the University Digital Conservancy may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor. By using these files, users agree to the Terms of Use. Materials in the UDC may contain content that is disturbing and/or harmful. For more information, please see our statement on harmful content in digital repositories.