Nanomaterials for Wastewater Remediation: Resolving Huge Problems with Tiny Particles

Abstract

Environmental pollution is a serious issue nowadays due to urbanization and overpopulation. Pollutants such as heavy metals, fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, industrial effluents and organic compounds are the major source of environmental pollution. Combination of these diverse compounds and its degradation in natural environment is very tough. To overcome this problem, nanotechnology plays a significant role in the environmental remediation. The application and performance of various nanomaterials in ecological remediation depends mainly on methodologies preferred for the elimination of target pollutants from wastewater. The superior properties like high surface area and efficiency of nanomaterials are key reason for the elimination of pollutants from contaminated water. Adsorption, absorption, chemical reaction, filtration and photocatalysis-mediated nanotechnology degrades highly contaminated sites effectively. The environmental remediation could be explored by several engineered nanomaterials such as carbon, graphene, chitosan, polymer supported, metal oxide, membranes, dendrimers and fibrous clay-based nanocomposites. Nanoremediation helps to diminish cost of overall cleaning up of large-scale contaminated sites compared to conventional method of remediation. Nano-based remediation reduces degradation time and has the potential of 100% pollutant remediation capacity. This chapter affords the knowledge on environmental pollutant remediation using nanomaterials.