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. 2024 Jan 2;14(1):274.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-50311-0.

Desalination of seawater using integrated microbial biofilm/cellulose acetate membrane and silver NPs/activated carbon nanocomposite in a continuous mode

Ebtesam El Bestawy  1 , Adel Salah Abd El-Hameed  2 , Eman Fadl  2
Affiliations

Desalination of seawater using integrated microbial biofilm/cellulose acetate membrane and silver NPs/activated carbon nanocomposite in a continuous mode

Ebtesam El Bestawy et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

The main objective of the present study was to desalinate seawater using Bacillus cereus gravel biofilm and cellulose acetate (CA) membranes with and without silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) as a potent and safe disinfectant for the treated water. Six desalination trials (I, II, III, IV, V and VI) were performed using the proposed biofilm/cellulose membrane. Results confirmed that Bacillus cereus gravel biofilm (microbial desalination) is the optimal system for desalination of seawater. It could achieve 45.0% RE (initial salinity: 44,478 mg/L), after only 3 h compared to the other tested treatments. It could also achieve 42, 42, 57, 43 and 59% RE for TDS, EC, TSS, COD and BOD, respectively. To overcome the problem of the residual salinity and reach complete elimination of salt content for potential reuse, multiple units of the proposed biofilm can be used in sequence. As a general conclusion, the Bacillus cereus biofilm system can be considered as remarkably efficient, feasible, rapid, clean, renewable, durable, environmentally friendly and easily applied technology compared to the very costly and complicated common desalination technologies. Up to our knowledge, this is the first time microbial biofilm was developed and used as an effective system for seawater desalination.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
FTIR spectra of AgNPs (A), Ag/AC-NC (B) and XRD pattern of AgNPs/AC-NC (C).
Figure 2
Figure 2
SEM micrographs of AgNPs and AgNPs/AC-NC (A) (Scale: a: ×1000, b: ×3000, c: ×10,000, d: ×5000 and e: ×10,000) and TEM Micrographs (B) of Synthesized AgNPs and AgNPs/AC-NC (Scale: a: 100 nm, b: 500 nm, c: 100 nm, d: 100 nm, f: 100 nm and g: 100 nm).
Figure 3
Figure 3
FTIR spectra of pristine CA (a), AgNPs nano composite-modified CA (b) before treatment, CA/AgNPs nanocomposite (c) and AgNPs nano composite-modified CA/Bacillus cereus biofilm (d), after seawater treatment.
Figure 4
Figure 4
SEM micrographs (A) of (a) CA pristine, (b) CA/AgNPs nanocomposite, (c) CA/AgNPs nanocomposite after seawater treatment and (d) CA/AgNPs nanocomposite as well as (B) SEM micrographs of (a) gravel particles before treatment, gravel particles with salt aggregates (b) and (c) Bacillus cereus gravel biofilm after seawater treatment.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Contact angle of the pristine CA, AgNPs-NC modified CA (A), AgNPs-NC modified CA (B) and AgNPs-NC modified CA with Bacillus cereus biofilm (C), after seawater treatment.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Removal efficiency/increase (RE/I%) of salinity using Bacillus cereus gravel biofilm (A), Bacillus cereus gravel biofilm and unmodified cellulose membrane filter (B), unmodified cellulose membrane sheets filter (C), AgNPs/AC-NC/gravel biofilm (D), gravel biofilm/AgNPs/AC-NC modified cellulose membrane filter (E), AgNPs/AC-NC modified cellulose membrane/gravel filter (F) systems, at different flow rates and running time.
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