Marine biomaterials as antifouling agent
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| Auteurs | | Top |
- Sudha, P.N.
- Gomathi, T.
- Venkatesan, J.
- Kim, S-K.
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| Abstract |
Water is one of the most essential elements to good health – it is necessary for the digestion and absorption of food, helps maintain proper muscle tone, supplies oxygen and nutrients to the cells, rids the body of wastes, and serves as a natural air conditioning system. Polluted water is unsuitable for drinking, recreation, agriculture, and industry. The presence of highly toxic heavy metals and synthetic chemicals in ground water, surface water, drinking water, and aqueous effluent has impact on human and aquatic life. The methods used for the removal of heavy metals include filtration, precipitation, adsorption, ion exchange, reverse osmosis and electrolysis. These processes may be efficient but expensive. Biosorption is a feasible option because it is both efficient and cheap, compared with other conventional methods and having the advantage of low operating cost, minimization of volume of chemicals and biological sludge to be disposed off and high efficiency in detoxifying very dilute effluents. Chitin , chitosan, and alginate are polysaccharides from marine sources which are potential sorbents either in the native state or in the modified forms. Marine biofouling is the undesirable accretion of biological organisms on artificial surfaces immersed such as ship hulls, jetty pilings, navigational instruments, aquaculture net cages, and seawater intake pipes in sea-water. Membrane fouling is one of the most important challenges faced in membrane operations. Fouling results in flux decline, which increases the energy demand for filtration. Hence demands for antifouling membranes are high. This chapter describes the modification of chitin and chitosan marine products for effective antifouling membrane fabrication and the mechanism involved in the antifouling process. |
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