ABSTRACT
New strategies for remediation of polluted and nutrient-depleted soils are in high demand due to the increasing pressure of the growth of worldwide population and environmental issues generated by industrial activities. Approximately, three-fourth of the world population lives in tropical regions, where the heavy rains promote the fast lixiviation of soil nutrients and contaminants, and the high temperatures are related to the fast degradation of soil organic matter. Carbonaceous nanomaterials present novel properties arising from their reduced dimensionality that are valuable to elaborate new effective strategies to solve these problems. For example, these materials present high specific surface area, mechanical strength, versatility to be tuned
from stable to reactive forms, and superior adsorption capacity for a large variety of contaminants. These properties are valuable to formulate solutions to immobilize contaminants, avoiding the contamination of groundwater, to promote carbon sequestration in soil, as well as to formulate bioinspired slow-release fertilizers. In this chapter the structural, chemical, adsorption, and application properties of carbon nanotubes, graphene, graphene oxide, biochar (artificially synthesized or from anthropogenic soils), and nanomaterials-based fertilizers are discussed. The adsorption aspects in soil are studied for the different materials, showing the benefits of their use in diverse scenarios. Scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and energy-dispersive X-ray analysis are presented as tools for the comprehension of the structural and chemical properties of these materials and their use in soil. The consequence of their application is also discussed in different contexts. Structural disorder in nanoscale and the presence of surface functional groups are shown to be related to the superior performance of these materials in soil applications, being promising to the elaboration of sustainable soil use practices.
