Water supply sustainability is one of the biggest challenges of the century, necessitating efficient and economical technologies for water purification. One of the most critical technologies in our world is filtration because it tremendously helps to tackle water scarcity issues. Conventional filtration technologies such as distillation, condensation, coagulation, and adsorption are demanding energy and their operational conditions are complicated. Therefore, it is necessary to explore a cost-effective and energy-efficient method for the filtration process. Membrane-based water treatment technology is a promising technique because of its efficiency in terms of cost and separation performance. However, the membranes are suffering from fouling phenomena and fabricating membranes with fouling-resistance properties is important. Generally, there are two different kinds of membrane materials: Organic (polymeric), and inorganic (ceramic) materials. Although polymeric membranes are easy to prepare, inexpensive, require less energy, and are flexible, inorganic membranes showed excellent thermal and chemical stability compared to polymeric membranes as well as have higher fouling-resistant property due to the inherent hydrophilicity. In the first study, NaA zeolite was fabricated on a stainless steel mesh by secondary growth method through optimizing aluminum/silicon ratio (ASR) to effectively separate oily water. The NaA zeolite-coated mesh was tested for various oils including olive oil, mineral oil, and diesel to assess the effect of the type of oil on oil/water separation efficacy. The degree of hydrophilicity was evaluated along with for mesh stability analysis in acidic, basic, and hot solutions. In the second study, ZnO atomic layer deposition (ALD) modified membranes were developed for treating produced water. ALD is a promising tool to fabricate membranes with controllable pore size and uniform structures. ZnO ALD coating helped improve membrane hydrophilicity and antifouling property and reduced the roughness and pore size of the membranes by improving hydrophilicity and decreasing roughness. In the third study, mixed matrix membranes were developed by embedding hydrophilic nanoparticles (MIL-101(Cr)-NH2) into cellulose acetate (CA) matrix to enhance hydrophilicity to treat dye/salt solution. This helped in countering fouling problems that membranes face when used for the treatment of industrial wastewater, by enhancing hydrophilicity. The mixed matrix membrane structures showed impressive stability with a negligible change in water contact angle and separation performance even after 30 days. Adding only 1 wt. % MIL-101 (Cr)-NH2 into the CA matrix enhanced the pure water flux to 68.1 ± 0.87 L m-2 h−1, an increase of ~ 150% compared to a pristine CA membrane owing to its enhanced hydrophilicity and larger pore size while maintaining similar salt rejection. In the fourth study, super hydrophilic silica nanoparticles (Si NPs) were used to modify tubular α-alumina membranes to improve their performance in terms of flux, oil rejection, and antifouling properties. The prepared membranes were applied for oil/water emulsion treatment. The Si NPs leaching decreased from the surface of the α-alumina tubular membrane by using polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as a pre-treatment step. By coating Si NPs, the surface roughness decreased, leading to lower fouling since traps on the membrane surface for containment decreased with decreasing membrane roughness
