PRELIMINARY STUDY OF NANOMATERIALS EFFECTS TOWARDS MEMBRANE SALT REJECTION IN REVERSE OSMOSIS DESALINATION PROCESS

Abstract

Fresh water or also known as potable water is the water that is safe to drink and to use for a food preparation. However, fresh water is not always potable water because a lot of the fresh water on earth is unsuitable for human consumption without some treatment. It can be seen that around 1 to 2 billion people lack of safe water which causes 30,000 deaths each week in which more people die from unsafe water than from war. As the world is expanding with a new technology every day, it is possible to make a desalination process around the world. A finding suggested that nanomaterial will be used in membrane technology and reverse osmosis (RO) to improve the attractiveness of the membrane without changing the mechanical properties of membrane. This literature review provides an overview analysis of several nanoparticles (NPs) such as titanium dioxide (TiO2), silver (Ag) and silica (SiO2) on effect towards performance of the thin film nanocomposite (TFNC) membranes in terms of RO desalination process. These NPs show a significant effect in terms of salt rejection and anti-fouling properties of TFNC membranes compared to the thin film composite (TFC) composite membranes during the process of RO desalination process. From this current review, an average 98.28% of the salt rejection was found in the application of TiO2. This result happens due to the mechanism of the TiO2 which it can block the salt ions from going across the membrane. Other than that, another NP which is silver has found an average salt rejection at 91.32%. This is because due to an approximately 1000-fold increase in surface area per unit weight, silver nanoparticle is more desired over micro particles, which allows for more chemical interactions. Lastly, silica nanoparticle has an average of salt rejection at 98.05%. These results can be achieved due to the mechanism of the silica nanoparticles which is increase the hydrophobicity of the membrane surface and decrease the membrane surface roughness. In conclusion, these nanoparticles have shown a significantly impacts towards of the salt rejection performance on the TFNC membranes in desalination process. For the further understanding, more studies should be done to gain more and in-depth knowledge in this RO desalination process.