Researchers explore nanotech ways to treat waste, protect environment

Coimbatore: Researchers at the centre of excellence under the department of environmental engineering at the Government College of Technology in the city have been working to use nanoparticles in treating waste.
Over the past four years, the researchers have taken up a range of nanoparticles and put them to use to treat a variety of effluents and waste ranging from domestic sewage to dyeing effluents and oil waste.

The research projects are being funded from the Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme (Teqip), said officials. Head of the environmental engineering department J Jeyanthi said the centre has been working on two thematic areas - nanotechnology and biotechnology.

While the researchers in nanotechnology have been working to apply nanomaterials for water management, waste water management, solid waste management and air quality management, the researchers in biotechnology have been working to extract bio-fuels from waste through fermentation.

The researchers in nanotechnology have been using carbon nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes and other composite nanomaterials to remove effluents from waste water, Jeyanthi said. Some of the researches include using nano-fibres to remove endocrine disrupting chemicals in domestic sewage, using carbon nano-tubes to remove dyes from dyeing industry effluents and using nano-membranes in oil waste water treatment.

Nanomaterials have a very high surface area by which they remove undesirable substances by the process of ‘adsorption’ in which particles stick to the surface of the nanomaterial and through processes such as filtration and coagulation, said researchers.

The centre of excellence has equipment for both synthesizing and characterizing nanomaterials, Jeyanthi said.

While equipment for chemical vapour deposition produce nanomaterials, equipment such as surface area analyzer helps in characterizing the nanomaterial by quantifying its surface area and particle size analyzer which measures the size of the particles.

The centre had received a fund of Rs 5 crore under the phase-II of Teqip. Under the phase-III of Tequip the centre has received a fund of Rs3crore in September 2018. The current research projects are being done under this phase, which would extend till 2020, said Jeyanthi. The centre uses 55% of the funds to procure equipment and infrastructure, 15% of the finds for incremental operation cost and the rest for research and development, she said.