Sustainable Management of Water Resources for Drinking Water Supply by Exploring Nanotechnology

Abstract

Freshwater is a limited resource that is needed by all living things. However, the available amount of it cannot counterbalance the explosion of the human population in recent years. This condition is worsened because of the contamination of many bodies of water by industrialization and urbanization. Nanomaterials offer an alternative sustainable solution due to their unique size-dependent properties, i.e., high specific surface area and discontinuous properties. These advantages can be utilized to reuse wastewater to become a sustainable water source for drinking water. Many recent studies have proven that nanotechnologies in the forms of nano-adsorbents, nanomembranes, and nano-catalysts have high performances in water contaminants removal. This review provides a comprehensive discussion around these nanotechnologies from the mechanism, applications, efficacy, advantages, disadvantages, and challenges in applications for producing drinking water including by wastewater reusing. Each nanotechnology reviewed here has been proven to perform effectively for water contaminants removal in laboratory scale. An initial study is also performed in this review to analyze the sustainability of nanotechnology for producing drinking water. In spite of the great efficacy, nanotechnologies utilization in commercial scales is still limited which requires further studies.