Treatment of Wastewater by Nanofiltration

Abstract

In recent years, some countries have implemented regulations governing aqueous discharges. With a view to sustainable development, manufacturers are looking for wastewater treatment technologies to control their discharges. Nanofiltration seems particularly suitable for the separation characteristics that it allows with regard to the size of the target molecules. Pollution by rare earths and heavy metals affects groundwater and surface water. This changed the quality of the water and made it unsafe to use. Water pollution is a big problem, given the diversity of sources and characteristics of polluting species, the main ones being industrial, urban and agricultural discharges, generated by human activity. The great difficulty being that heavy metals are not biodegradable and tend to accumulate in living organisms (fish, mollusks, vegetables, etc.) consumed by humans. For these concerns, environmental laws have become more severe. For this, the treatment of aqueous effluents has become important. It can be concluded that separation and purification chemistry is an area of topical research. The discharges coming from the industry contain heavy metals (chromium, copper, zinc, nickel, iron, cobalt, cadmium, lead, …) which are harmful for the human health, the fauna and flora. It is necessary to be well controlled. This chapter presents a study of nanofiltration for industrial wastewater treatment.