Magnetically separable nanoparticles for wastewater treatment

Water is a vital source for both human life and environment, with 10% of the water globally available for domestic use. World Health Organization and UNICEF mention, in a report on Progress on Sanitation and Drinking Water, that approximately 768 million people do not have access to clean water, and companies are working for finding and implementing circular economies in order to save water for a sustainable production. In this context, the optimization of wastewaters recovery and their recycling are among the most crucial aspects to improve. Industrial wastewater can be also a resource for recovering valuable materials and components and, when properly purified, can be almost entirely recycled, setting the basis for a circular economy from the water re-use point of view. In recent years, environmental remediation research studies have been focused on the design and development of nanosized materials for adsorption of both organic and heavy metal pollutants. Their small dimension on one side allows for a low resistance to mixing but it also represents a limit for their final separation from the aqueous mixture, potentially becoming additional pollutants. In this study, a new set of selective magnetized nanoadsorbents/nanoparticles (MNPs), potentially capable of removing a wide series of pollutants (both organic and inorganic) from wastewaters, have been developed and tested at lab scale.