Abstract

This study aimed to design the nanofilter using photocatalytic TiO2-NPs on the siliceous frustules of diatom's composite under UV-light irradiation. TiO2-NPs synthesized by sol-gel method, and were characterized by XRD and TEM methods. The diatomaceous composite were described by SEM and FPXRF. Darcy and CFD equations were used to measure the initial length, filter mass flow rate, area-weighted average of pressure and velocity cantors. The quality and kinetic of nanofilter were measured by assessing of common bacterial coliforms. More than 85 of diatomaceous soil was SiO2 and crystal size of TiO2-NPs/SiO2 composite was 25 nm. The mass flow rate and area-weighted average of velocity cantors were increased to 1.07 (g/s) and 0.289 (m/s), respectively. The sporicidal and total coliform removal capability of nanofilter were 80.8 and 85.8 of filtering capability, respectively. The nanofilter capacity has been statistically declining for 3 th filtering in compared with 1 th and 2 th filtration (-6 efficiency, P=0.033). Instead, bactericidal capabilities were inversely correlated by filtering time (R=-0.81, P=0.93). The TiO2-NPs/SiO2 composite is appropriate for filtering of water coliforms.