Installation and training of a Nanosight LM20 nanoparticle characterisation system has been completed at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
The Water Desalination and Reuse Research Centre is part of King Abdullah University for Science and Technology, located at Thuwal beside Jeddah city in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The mission for the centre is to contribute research and development toward the integrated and sustainable exploitation of impaired-quality drinking water sources with a minimisation of energy use, chemical use, waste residuals, environmental impact and carbon footprint.
Nanoparticle size and count is vital to these research activities and the division has selected the Nanosight LM20, employing nanoparticle tracking analysis to aid its research.
'Our problem is colloidal fouling, as it causes interruption in the membrane processes,' said laboratory manager Dr Faisal Wali.
'Researchers are looking for different possibilities to avoid particle contamination prior to their direct interaction with membranes and, to get around this challenge, the correct and accurate detection of the nano-particles in different kinds of water is required,' he said.
The centre seeks to study the treated sea water after using different types of membranes.
The data collected using the Nanosight LM20 will provide a guide to understand on how membranes affect the removal of nanoparticles and get more information on what is in sea water.
As well as using Nanosight's LM-20 system, the Centre is using a variety of other established particle characterisation techniques such as Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) and NIBS (non-invasive back scatter) technology.
However, each has deficiencies in terms of parameters such as sample preparation and speed of use.
Nanosight provides particle sizing and counting in real time, recorded in a video file that may be used for further calculations.
According to Wali, individual particle tracking enables a much better peak resolution than DLS, making it better suited to the study of well-treated water.
It gives an approximate particle concentration while enabling the researchers to view bacterial contamination easily as 'swimming' particles.
