Oct. 7, 2015

Countries' rapid industrialization has resulted in wide production of industrial wastewater to the extent that it has turned into a serious concern to the environment, human health and economy.
Iranian researchers succeeded in the production of nanofiltration membranes to increase efficiency of the process to purify industrial water and wastewater. The blockage is less in these membranes in comparison with commercial samples, which reduce the cost of process. The study has been carried out at laboratorial scale.
The majority of commercial membranes used in industry have negative charges on their surface. Therefore, they cannot remove dangerous cations or dyes with positive charge from water or textile wastewater. In addition, all membrane processes deal with blocking problem in the membrane. Blocking reduces performance and efficiency of the nanofiltration process, and increases the cost.

Based on the tests carried out on nanofiltration membranes, the amount of water flux passing through the membranes increases while blockage decreases. It means that the efficiency of the treated water has increased in the outlet and the product cost decreases.
Since the synthesized nanofiltration membranes have high cation entrapping percentage and the lowest possible amount of blockage at laboratorial stage, the researchers hope to use the membrane in the purification of water and wastewater of different industries, including textile, after carrying out complementary studies and mass production of the product.