Nanotechnology Applications for Clean Water, 2nd Edition

Introduction: Water Purification in the Twenty-First Century—Challenges and Opportunities

Richard C. Sustich, Mark Shannon and Brian PianfettiCenter of Advanced Materials for Purification of Water with Systems, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

I.1 Current water issues

Ensuring the availability of clean, abundant fresh water for human use is among the most pressing issues facing the United States and the world, as depicted in Fig. I.1 [1]. Nature framed the issues by stating, “More than one billion people in the world lack access to clean water, and things are getting worse. Over the next two decades, the average supply of water per person will drop by a third, possibly condemning millions of people to an avoidable ...