Fabrication of Advanced Visible Light Driven Photo-Catalytic Membranes Using Nano-Engineered Semiconducting Materials for the Degradation of Hazardous Organic Pollutants from Water

In the age of industrialization, water pollution has become a serious environmental threat that many developing and developed nations have to reckon with. The sources of water...r pollution are multifarious, leading to different kinds of pollutants like organic, inorganic and microbial elements mixing into the precious water bodies. Hence the methods to purify the polluted water for the purpose of environmental reasons and to reuse for agricultural and industrial purposes are multifaceted. There are many methods of water purification system, which involve huge instrumentations and complex methodologies and still being a source for secondary pollution. Photo-catalysis is an effective, simple and cost effective method, where the light induced charge carriers generated in the semiconducting material is used to degrade and demineralise the organic, inorganic and microbial pollutants from water. However, the major challenges facing this wonderful method is getting a material that is effective in the visible light radiation and also reducing the natural tendency of charge recombination in order to make this electron hole pair initiate and mediate the photochemical process. Fabrication of advanced photo-catalytic membranes using nano-engineered semiconducting materials remains a method of choice for visible light-induced degradation of hazardous organic pollutants from water because of its effectiveness, simplicity and low coast. In this work, we will aim to fabricate advanced photo-catalytic membranes using nano-engineered semiconducting materials capable of working in the visible light, particularly in the abundant solar radiation for photo-catalytic degradation of hazardous organic pollutants from water. The advantage of this method is that by simple engineering of the band structures of the materials by various techniques, water purification is carried out with the naturally available solar light, which is in the direction of solar energy harvesting. To the best of our knowledge, this will be the first attempt to fabricate advanced photo-catalytic membranes using nano-engineered semiconducting materials by economical and eco-friendly route and use it as photo-catalytic surface for degradation of hazardous organic pollutants from water such as synthetic dyes, pesticides, heavy metal ions and other toxic impurities. This study will provide a technical basis for applied research work, and the outcome of this research will be very useful for industrial applications of water purification and could be beneficial for many water purification companies in the Kingdom. This study will form also a technical base for applied research work, and the outcome of this research will be very useful for industrial applications and could be highly beneficial for SABIC, Saudi Aramco, KACARE, and other renewable energy related companies in the Kingdom. In addition, this project will act as platform to train young Saudi faculties and students from various departments to promote interdisciplinary research to harness fruitful national and international collaborations. It is expected that the project will end with reasonable scholarly outcome such as ISI journal publications and a patent.