ABSTRACT
The field of nanotechnology revolutionized almost all scientific and technological domains, and environmental remediation is no exception. One of the most prominent environmental applications of nanoparticles has been the treatment and purification of water where nanostructures are employed to purify natural as well as waste water through different actions such as degradation of toxic dyes, detection and adsorption of heavy metal ions, sensing of harmful chemicals, and removal of pathogenic microbes. For bioapplications, silver and gold are known to possess potent antimicrobial properties against many bacterial and fungal species. The nanoparticles of silver are now being extensively used to make antimicrobial coatings on textiles, furniture, and wound dressing materials, and are incorporated in food preservation systems and biomedical instruments as well. Other biological properties like anticancer and anticoagulant activities of metal nanoparticles are being explored and will be exploited in future applications in the fields of medical science and biotechnology. In this chapter, all of the environmental and biological applications of nanoparticles mentioned here have been discussed in detail.
