Applications of Nanoparticles in Wastewater Treatment

Abstract

High-quality water is the most sought-after resource for human survival. Various natural and anthropogenic activities have contributed to groundwater pollution and have affected the quality of drinking water in the past few decades. Release of toxic effluents from the industrial sector is a major source of groundwater pollution. Different conventional methods used for purification of water involve use of adsorbents, reverse osmosis, ion exchange, and electrostatic precipitation, with the disadvantages of high cost, poor recyclability, and low efficiency. Despite progress made in the development of sustainable technologies, their use has been limited, largely because of the limitations of the materials’ properties, including their costs. Use of nanoparticles would help to solve this problem and would address the consequences of the presence of pesticides and heavy metals in water. Nanoparticles possess useful characteristics such as a direct bandgap, a high optical absorption coefficient, a layered structure, tunable band edges for optimized catalysis, low cost, and low toxicity. This review addresses different properties of nanoparticles contributing to water treatment and nanoadsorbents used for removal of numerous pollutants in groundwater purification.