ABSTRACT

One of the requirements for the treatment of drinking water is the removal of pathogenic microorganisms. Typically, the most used techniques apply inorganic nanoparticles or chlorine release precursors to inactivate bacteria. While these treatments are very effective, they tend to show a decrease in antimicrobial activity over time, releasing potentially toxic ions and contributing to bacterial resistance. In this sense, the development of hydrogel-based materials has become a potential alternative for water disinfection. The synthesis and functionalization of hydrogels have been proven to improve the global performance of microorganism retention. Our work provides an overview of the synthesis and functionalization of hydrogel-based materials, their advantages and limitations, and the latest research on the use of hydrogels for water disinfection. The future panorama of hydrogel-based materials applicability for water treatment is also provided. The main challenge to expand the use of hydrogels in water treatment is the lack of research assessing the feasibility of large-scale applicability of these materials, considering real systems. Most of the studies carried out experiments at laboratory scale with controlled situations, in which interactions between microorganisms and real world contaminants were not considered.

摘要

饮用水处理的要求之一是去除病原微生物。通常，最常用的技术应用无机纳米粒子或氯释放前体来灭活细菌。虽然这些治疗方法非常有效，但随着时间的推移，它们的抗菌活性往往会降低，释放出潜在的有毒离子并导致细菌耐药性。从这个意义上说，水凝胶基材料的开发已成为水消毒的潜在替代品。水凝胶的合成和功能化已被证明可以提高微生物截留的整体性能。我们的工作概述了水凝胶基材料的合成和功能化、其优点和局限性，以及使用水凝胶进行水消毒的最新研究。还提供了水凝胶基材料在水处理方面的应用前景。扩大水凝胶在水处理中的使用的主要挑战是缺乏考虑实际系统来评估这些材料大规模应用的可行性的研究。大多数研究都是在实验室规模的受控情况下进行实验，其中没有考虑微生物与现实世界污染物之间的相互作用。