Potential Impacts of Nanoparticles on Water Reclamation

Nanotechnology is an emerging technology that could impact a wide range of industries in the near future. Nanotechnology involves production and use of extremely small particles (1 – 100 nm size scale), wherein the particle synthesis is controlled or manipulated at the molecular level (1). The nanoparticles are often used for industrial/commercial applications due to their extremely high reactivity compared to commercial grade bulk materials. The high reactivity of the nanoparticles is contributed by several factors. First, the extremely small size of the nanoparticles provides orders of magnitude higher surface area (reaction sites) per unit mass of the media. In addition, the nanoparticles have a larger number of atoms on their surface, higher porosity and small crystallite structures, all of which enhance their reactivity. Yet another reason the nanoparticles use is increasing is that the “bottom-up” approach (synthesis of particles from molecular level manipulation) involved in the production of these particles facilitates incorporation of other desired structural characteristics for optimum contaminant treatment (2). In other words, nanotechnology provides an opportunity to synthesize stable, “new” materials that can not be synthesized using conventional synthesis techniques.