Wastewater is not just sewage.

All the water used in the home that goes down the drains or into the sewage collection system is wastewater. This includes water from baths, showers, sinks, dishwashers, washing machines, and toilets. Small businesses and industries often contribute large amounts of wastewater to sewage collection systems; others operate their own wastewater treatment systems. In combined municipal sewage systems, water from storm drains is also added to the municipal wastewater stream. Wastewater treatment plants operate at a critical point of the water cycle, helping nature defend water from e cessi!e pollution. "ost treatment plants ha!e primary treatment #physical remo!al of floatable and settleable solids$ and secondary treatment #the biological remo!al of dissol!ed solids$.tertiary treatment for remo!al of nitrogen and phosphorus #chemical process in!ol!ed$. The presence in the en!ironment of large %uantities of to ic metals such as mercury, lead, cadmium, &inc or others, poses serious health risks to humans, and this threat puts the scientific community under pressure to de!elop new methods to detect and eliminate to ic contaminants from wastewaters in efficient and economically !iable ways. 'esulting from the combination of water treatment in!estigations with the latest in material science, a new type of nanomaterial called nanostructured silica has been found to fulfil the re%uisites necessary for these applications. With its large surface area and regular pores, it is an ideal material that after a functionali&ation process that links to its surface di!erse organic ligands has the capability of being able to e tract hea!y metals from wastewaters. This capacity also allows its use as a high sensiti!ity detection tool for these to ic metals, and considering that the contamination le!els permitted in drinking water are increasingly restricti!e; functionali&ed silica offers additional benefits o!er other water treatment methods. The design of this nanostructured functionali&ed silica is based on the emulation on the material of the reaction that hea!y metals ha!e with some biomolecules in li!ing cells. Therefore a good understanding of the reaction that bonds such metals to particular functional groups on li!ing cells is of great use to determine the best functional groups to be used on the surface of the nanostructured material; for e ample, it has been detected that hea!y metals interact mainly with functional groups containing o ygen, nitrogen and sulphur.

Researchers at The University of South Australia (UniSA) are developing a unique treatment for wastewater that guarantees improved water quality over existing treatments without relying on expensive chemicals. mproving the quality of treated wastewater from sewage treatment plants for reuse is !ecoming more important than ever in Australia due to dwindling water resources" according to #r $o %in" #irector of UniSA&s 'ater (nvironment $iotechnology )a!oratory.*The poor quality of treated wastewater has limited its use for agriculture and aquaculture"+ #r $o %in said.*The last stage of any water treatment is to remove micro,organisms. -urrently we use chlorine as the disinfectant !ut" even after treatment" the water still contains organic compounds. -hlorine removes the micro,organisms !ut reacts to the organic pollutants" producing disinfection !y,products that are !iologically undegrada!le and toxic and can&t !e removed from the water. 'hen transferred to the eco system"

they can cause serious health consequences if used in agriculture and other industries.*This growing pro!lem is of particular concern to the United .ations" where close attention is !eing paid internationally to organic pollutants" which cannot !e removed economically / !ut a solution is on the way"+ #r %in said.UniSA researchers are developing a single stage treatment that can remove !iological and chemical contaminants in the treated wastewater from sewage treatment plants.The new solar nano,photocatalytic wastewater treatment process can replace a chlorination disinfection step as a tertiary treatment process to disinfect the micro, organisms and at the same time remove the organic compounds" ma0ing the wastewater suita!le as a water resource.*.ormally micro,organisms are used to !rea0 down large organic compounds !ut" !ecause these compounds are !iologically undegrada!le" we have to use another form of energy to !rea0 them down. 1ur energy comes from U2 sunlight in association with photocatalysts. (nergy generated from the photocatalyst cell reaction can 0ill micro,organisms and !rea0 down the undegrada!le compounds" resulting in clean water that can !e used for an extended range of agriculture and aquatic uses / and it won&t damage the eco system"+ #r %in said. *The other good news is that this treatment process will !e very cost effective !ecause the solar photocatalysts can !e recovered and reused. They use cheap energy from the sun"+ he said.
IMPACTS

(emand for )lean Water (ri!es Ad!ances in Water and Wastewater Treatment With the rising need for clean water and subse%uent increase in generation of wastewater, it has become mandatory to treat wastewater in order to obtain high*%uality pure water. +anotechnology is generally used in areas where there is a need for attacking the molecular le!el of the substances. ,-arious forms of nanotechnology such as, nanomembranes and nanoporous &eolites are being used for the treatment of water and wastewater,. according to the analyst of the study. ,Though the pace of ad!ancement of nanotechnology has been slow with respect to water and wastewater treatment, industrialists are researching !arious kinds of nanotechnology to effecti!ely treat water and wastewater..The primary moti!e for wastewater treatment is that less than / percent of the world0s water is suitable for drinking while the remaining is brackish. As a result, there is a growing need for fresh and clean water especially for drinking purposes. This escalates the need for technologies that produce high %uality water after treatment that do not cause any detrimental effect to human beings or the en!ironment. 1tili&ing nanotechnology for water and wastewater treatment would certainly make pre!iously unusable water sources such as brackish water, seawater, and other wastewater as an a!ailable source of water supply. "ultiple 2enefits of +anotechnology 3ncourages Widespread 1ptake in Water and Wastewater Treatment The %uality of water that is obtained after the adoption of nanotechnology is well within the re%uirements of agencies such as 3n!ironmental 4rotection Agency #34A$. It has been determined that these nano*based filters are able to achie!e 55.56 percent efficiency, when compared to con!entional technologies. As a result, the water or effluent that is obtained after the treatment could be reused for !arious domestic and industrial

applications.+anotechnology e!en remo!es proto&oan cysts, oocysts, and helminth o!a and in some cases bacteria and !iruses from the water. ,+anotechnology also pro!ides more effecti!e alternati!es to the treatment of contaminants such as mercury, arsenic, and perchlorate,. e plains the analyst. ,As the impact of these contaminants on humans is gradually reali&ed, it has become increasingly essential to monitor them at trace le!els, which is impossible with con!entional treatment methods..

Too much of a good thing could be harmful to the en!ironment. 7or years, scientists ha!e known about sil!er0s ability to kill harmful bacteria and, recently, ha!e used this knowledge to create consumer products containing sil!er nanoparticles. +ow, a 1ni!ersity of "issouri researcher has found that sil!er nanoparticles also may destroy benign bacteria that are used to remo!e ammonia from wastewater treatment systems. Se!eral products containing sil!er nanoparticles already are on the market, including socks containing sil!er nanoparticles designed to inhibit odor*causing bacteria and high* tech, energy*efficient washing machines that disinfect clothes by generating the tiny particles. The positi!e effects of that technology may be o!ershadowed by the potential negati!e en!ironmental impact. ,2ecause of the increasing use of sil!er nanoparticles in consumer products, the risk that this material will be released into sewage lines, wastewater treatment facilities, and, e!entually, to ri!ers, streams and lakes is of concern,. said 8hi%iang 9u, assistant professor of ci!il and en!ironmental engineering in "10s )ollege of 3ngineering. ,We found that sil!er nanoparticles are e tremely to ic. The nanoparticles destroy the benign species of bacteria that are used for wastewater treatment. It basically halts the reproduction acti!ity of the good bacteria.. 9u said sil!er nanoparticles generate more uni%ue chemicals, known as highly reacti!e o ygen species, than do larger forms of sil!er. These o ygen species chemicals likely inhibit bacterial growth. 7or e ample, the use of wastewater treatment ,sludge. as land* application fertili&er is a common practice, according to 9u. If high le!els of sil!er nanoparticles are present in the sludge, soil used to grow food crops may be harmed.

Cleaner water through nanotechnology

Coated silica particles filter out toxins, pathogens
Tiny particles of pure silica coated with an acti!e material could be used to remo!e to ic chemicals, bacteria, !iruses, and other ha&ardous materials from water much more effecti!ely and at lower cost than con!entional water purification methods, according to researchers writing in the current issue of the International :ournal of

+anotechnology.4eter "ajewski and )hiu 4ing )han of the Ian Wark 'esearch Institute, at the 1ni!ersity of South Australia, e plain that the a!ailability of drinking %uality water is fast becoming a major socio*economic issue across the globe, especially in the de!eloping world. 9owe!er, water purification technology is often complicated, re%uires sophisticated e%uipment and is e pensi!e to run and maintain. "oreo!er, it usually re%uires a final costly disinfection stage. The Australian team suggests that nanotechnology could pro!ide a simple answer to the problem.The researchers ha!e in!estigated how silica particles can be coated easily with a nanometer*thin layer of acti!e material based on a hydrocarbon with a silicon*containing anchor. The coating is formed through a chemical self*assembly process so in!ol!es nothing more than stirring the ingredients to make the acti!e particles.These acti!e particles, so called Surface 3ngineered Silica #S3S$, were then tested to demonstrate that they could remo!e biological molecules, pathogens such as !iruses like the 4olio !irus, bacteria like 3scherichia coli, and )ryptosporidium par!um, which is a waterborne parasite.;The results clearly show that organic species can efficiently be remo!ed at p9 ranges of drinking water by stirring the coated particles in the contaminated water for up to one hour and filtering the powder,; the researchers say. They point out that the filtration process occurs through an electrostatic attraction between the pathogens and the surface engineered particles.The recent report entitled <Water for 4eople * Water for =ife< of the World Water Assessment 4rogram of the 1+3S)> says that more than ?@@@ people die e!ery day due to water*related diseases, including diarrhea, worm infections, and infectious diseases. In addition, organic pollutants from industrial waste water from pulp and paper mills, te tiles and leather factories, steel foundries, and petrochemicals refineries, are a major cause of illness in parts of the world where regulations do not necessarily protect people from such industrial outflows.The team<s nanotech approach to water purification could help pre!ent disease and poisoning for potentially millions of people.
In order to address this need within the industry for a cost effective way to decontaminate water, scientists at the University of Aberdeen have been developing a new technology that uses a sunlight-powered catalyst to treat contaminated water. The photoelectrocatalyst is mounted into an electrochemical cell and, when it reacts to light, the catalyst interacts with any organic pollutants in the water, oxidising them across the catalysts surface. Another by-product of this process is the recovery of charge in the cell, meaning that as well as purifying water, this technology also creates electricity.