Synthesis of Hybrid Polymeric Nanomaterials and their applications for Deep Water Purification in column system

The rapid growth of industries and the increase in the use of industrial materials and chemical products worldwide demands continuous development of efficient technologies that help not only in detecting the presence of toxic pollutants in water but also in continuous developing of efficient materials for pollutants treatment from contaminated waters. As good quality water is a precious commodity, it is imperative for wastewater treatment for the removal of pollutants. Among the water treatment technologies, adsorption is regarded as one of the most effective methods to remove pollutants from wastewaters. This process is mainly limited by the materials which are required to be both efficient and regenerable. The size of the material is an important factor, as the small size will allow having more contact surface, more functionality. Having small size materials will allow designing small units or columns to be used for water purification in real applications. Looking around us, there are several industries that produce a lot of polluted water, thus, all are required to have water purification units. This indicates clearly the huge demand on efficient materials that can be used in removing both organic and metal ions pollutants from wastewater. The aim of the proposed research is to design efficient materials consisting of polymers grafted on carbon nanostructures as a support. The carbon nanostructures include graphene and graphene oxide that will be derived from waste graphite. The graphene or graphene oxide surface will be decorated with hydrophilic monomers which would be allowed to undergo polymerization to generate graphene incorporated polymeric materials. The materials will thus be utilized to carry out two jobs: simultaneous removal of toxic metal ions and organic contaminants. The adsorption activity of the materials will be tested for real wastewaters in both batch and column modes. The columns systems will be designed in this work. The proposed research will have great significance because the availability of pure water is going to be a major problem in the future. Our project is of multidisciplinary nature, and it links synthesis and characterization to applications. In the project, graduate and undergraduate students will be trained from the very beginning of the project mobilization.