When: Friday 28th June 2019, at 12pm-1pm
Where: BioPRIA Building 59, 15 Alliance Lane, Clayton VIC 3800
Speaker: Mostafa Dehghani
Title: Cellulose nanofiber- nanomaterials for novel wastewater treatment approaches
Abstract:
Polymeric materials have been widely used in different separation and filtration processes in the last century. Unfortunately, these materials are not completely environmental friendly and have negative aspects on the environment and making problems during production or in removal stages of the process. Hence, new materials which are suitable in the aspect of environmental issues and are as good as common polymer or even better in filtration procedure have been introduced and synthesized. Cellulose nanofibers hold numerous unique properties which make them decent candidates for the separation, filtration and purifying applications, such as; high (nano size ranged) porous construction, large specific surface area, great interconnection degree and also flexible and modifiable nature. Due to the unique synthesis procedure of cellulose materials, this biopolymer is a justifiable and also renewable source which can be regenerated continually. Therefore, plant cellulose nanofibers can be used for different applications due to above mentioned properties, especially for wastewater treatment. The advanced properties of these materials can be improved by using nano oxide materials (especially 3D nanomaterials) and integrating them into the nanocellulose matrix as additive and filler. One of the favourable nano oxide materials which is used in different kind of polymeric separation systems as a filtering agent is zinc oxide. Therefore, by using these two materials, a strong matrix will be made which has both advantages of cellulose nanofiber and mesoporous silica in novel wastewater treatment approaches such as photocatalytic degradation and filtration processes.