Development and Characterization of Nano-Structured Membranes for Enhanced Water Treatment

Description:
In developing countries like Kenya, many people especially children die every year from water-borne diseases emanating from the use and drinking of unsafe water. The best way to minimize these effects is to provide people with safe sources of drinking water, good sanitation, adequate housing, and access to health care. Nanotechnology has the potential to deliver affordable and effective solutions for water sanitation/purification, providing access to safe drinking water to millions of people. This will improve quality of life and can reduce hospital visits due the water borne diseases thus cutting the government’s health budget significantly. In this work, we have used developed nanostructured conducting poly (amic) acid (nPAA) membranes with experimentally-controlled particle size, and surface functionalities and used them to selectively isolate and remove diverse chemical and pathogenic biological pollutants in water at point of use. We have embedded silver and gold nanoparticles in the PAA membranes/films which changes the properties of the membrane, making it hydrophilic, so that water passes through more easily. These nanoparticles can be easily synthesized and have for the longest shown impressive anti-microbial agents. The nanostructured thin films were fabricated via thermal and wet phase inversion techniques and then tested against the microbes Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus following standard tests. The crystallinity and dispersion of Au/Ag nanoparticles on the fabricated films were characterized by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), and UV-Visible spectroscopy. The membranes can be utilized in modeling Point-of-Use water filtration cartilages capable of eliminating the water quality problem in the developing world.

Speaker: Naumih Noah - United States International University-Africa