ABSTRACT
During the recent past few decades, massive development in the field of nanoscience technology emerged as a promising solution for environmental cleanup, as well as production of eco-friendly energy. Throughout the years, nanomaterials (NMs) have opened several new possibilities for a range of manufacturing/industrial applications, including wastewater treatment and the removal of hazardous contaminants from the atmosphere. Recent advances have introduced a new way of dealing with humankind’s sustainability by functionalizing NMs to explore their hidden capabilities in variety of sectors from biomedical applications to food packaging. Functionalized NMs offer unique physical and non-invasive attributes, including being cost-effective and less time consuming, high catalytic activity, high specificity and selectivity, being anti-corrosive and anti-agglomeration, and many more. This chapter will address distinct methods to functionalize an NM such as covalent interactions, non-covalent interactions, chemisorption, electrostatic interactions, and intrinsic surface engineering. In this chapter, we will also summarize the diversity of applications of functionalized NMs, including wastewater treatment, biosensing, soil pollution, air pollution, and the catalysis industry.
