Nanotechnology: The Technology for Efficient, Economic, and Ecological Treatment of Contaminated Water

Abstract

Providing fresh water for the society is very important for the authorities concerned. Contaminating the ground water and water resources leads to ill health to the civil and urban development. The waste water treatment using traditional methods are not sufficient to uphold the freshwater requirement due to the increase of population, climatic changes, depleting water resources, and floods. At this juncture there is a need of innovative technology to ensure the fresh water supply to the human population. Nanotechnology provides affordable solutions to remove pollutants from the water resources. Nanomaterial are very small and have large surface-to-volume ratio that make them a potential adsorbent of heavy metals and pesticides and destroy harmful micro bodies. This chapter gives the overview on the availability of nanomaterial for the potential treatment of viruses, heavy metals, pesticides, and inorganic solutes in wastewater. Further, nanotechnology is a stand alone water purification technology for removing all types of pollutant from the wastewater including microbes.