Applications of Metallic Nanomaterials for the Desalination of Water

Abstract

The Earth has around 71% of its surface covered with water but all of it is not fit for human consumption. Due to increasing global warming and climate change, the global scarcity of safe and clean potable drinking water has come into the limelight. Water scarcity is not a novel issue. It has already affected almost every continent of this blue planet. It is driven by two primary sources: increasing demand for fresh water due to the increase in population and over exhaustion of the available freshwater resources. The increasing demand for freshwater has compelled the scientists to come up with novel and innovative ideas to remove the salinity of brackish water to make it fit for day to day human use. During the past decade, stress has been given to extract fresh, clean and safe potable elixir of life from the bountiful stores of sea water by exploiting various technologies. As nanomaterials are providing promising solutions to almost all our problems, they are again being accessed in order to combat the problem of global freshwater scarcity. Desalination methods have marvellously improved under the impact of nanomaterials. Different metallic nanomaterials are being used to serve this purpose; for example silver, iron, zinc, titanium dioxide in addition to natural and synthetically derived polymeric bionanomaterials. In the present chapter, a brief account of all the metallic nanomaterials which are being used for desalination of water has been provided by thorough investigation on the research done till now. It strives to throw light on various materials and methods which are based on the exploitation of nanotechnology for the desalination of water.