10. Bio-Membrane Based Solutions for Wastewater Treatment

In recent years, Natural Biopolymers are been investigated in various aspects of research from drug delivery systems to being fabricated as a membrane for wastewater remediation. Today's growing pollution within the water bodies has spurred the investigation of green non-conventional technologies for wastewater remediation. Water pollution and its remediation are two critical issues that needs to be tackled soon. The ever increasing demand of freshwater supply has highlighted the need to come up with better and innovative measures of wastewater treatment. Heavy metals and toxic dyes are predominant contents of wastewater/effluents coming from several industries like tanning, textiles, etc. Conventional methods of removing these pollutants tend to be harmful for the environment and also costlier as the materials used generally are toxic and are not reusable. For this reason, with the developments in nanotechnology today, Biomembranes, or membranes synthesized from biopolymers like beta-cyclodextrin, acacia, chitosan, alginate, cellulose, etc. have come up as the proper alternative owing to their biodegradability, non toxicity, reusability and recyclability. The recently developed methods like electrospinning, 3D printing, particulate leaching, etc. have made production of novel biomembranes easier. Characterization methods like SEM, TEM, TGA, XRD, etc. help us to understand and compare the properties of the formed membranes better, which can be further used to improve its performance. In this article, we shall explore and discuss about two such biomembranes and their applications for efficient wastewater treatment.