Environmental application of nanotechnology: air, soil, and water

Abstract

Global deterioration of water, soil, and atmosphere by the release of toxic chemicals from the ongoing anthropogenic activities is becoming a serious problem throughout the world. This poses numerous issues relevant to ecosystem and human health that intensify the application challenges of conventional treatment technologies. Therefore, this review sheds the light on the recent progresses in nanotechnology and its vital role to encompass the imperative demand to monitor and treat the emerging hazardous wastes with lower cost, less energy, as well as higher efficiency. Essentially, the key aspects of this account are to briefly outline the advantages of nanotechnology over conventional treatment technologies and to relevantly highlight the treatment applications of some nanomaterials (e.g., carbon-based nanoparticles, antibacterial nanoparticles, and metal oxide nanoparticles) in the following environments: (1) air (treatment of greenhouse gases, volatile organic compounds, and bioaerosols via adsorption, photocatalytic degradation, thermal decomposition, and air filtration processes), (2) soil (application of nanomaterials as amendment agents for phytoremediation processes and utilization of stabilizers to enhance their performance), and (3) water (removal of organic pollutants, heavy metals, pathogens through adsorption, membrane processes, photocatalysis, and disinfection processes).

New frontiers in the biosynthesis of metal oxide nanoparticles and their environmental applications: an overview

“…Nano adsorbents are effectively used in the removal of organic compounds, metal ions and their selectivity toward particular pollutants can be increased by functionalization. Nanoscale metal oxides, such as titanium dioxides, iron oxides, zinc oxides, alumina, etc., have been explored as low-cost, effective adsorbent for water treatment offering a more cost-efficient remediation technology due to their size and adsorption efficiency [167].…”

Recent Progress in Two‐Dimensional Antimicrobial Nanomaterials

“…Due to favorable properties, including large specific surface area, quantum confinement effect, and facile functionalization, nanomaterials have exhibited attractive applications in the fields of catalysis, biomedicine, environmental remediation, and disinfection . Among them, 2D nanomaterials are promising antimicrobial materials.…”

Synthesis of BN/g‐C3N4 as Visible‐light‐driven Photocatalysts for Degradation of Different Organic Pollutants

“…Recently, the research of semiconductor catalysts as efficient photocatalytic activity have become hot spot topics. [1][2][3][4] However, most of the photocatalysts have two key technology problems: (1) The catalysts have low rate of utilization of solar energy which only 5% of the UV light to the sun light can be used; (2) The catalysts always suffer from the fast recombination of photo-induced electron-hole pairs, which severely limit its photocatalytic performance. [5] Therefore, it is a huge challenge for researchers to develop numerous strategies for overcoming these shortcomings.…”