Nanomaterials-Assisted Decontamination of Various Pollutants From Water Resources

In aquatic systems, the presence of various materials like organic, inorganic, radioactive, and biological pollutants beyond their permissible limits is dangerous to humans and aquatic life because of their bioaccumulation and biomagnification properties. These pollutants contaminate the water bodies and impact living organisms directly due to their toxic and carcinogenic effects. For this, several nanomaterials-assisted techniques are used for the treatment of polluted aquatic systems, which include processes like adsorption, coagulation, chemical precipitation, electrochemical treatment, photocatalysis, and membrane technologies. Among different nanomaterial-assisted techniques for the removal of pollutants, the adsorptive removal of contaminants metal and its oxides, carbon-based complexes, and zeolites have shown the maximum potential. This is due to their properties like more active surface area, having number of functional groups, high chemical stability, high thermal stability, production of non-toxic side-products, cost-effectiveness, and 100low-cost operational unit and simple design. Some of the studied sorbents used in these processes are hydrogel nanocomposite, water-soluble Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles, polyacrylic acid/graphene oxide/Fe₃O₄ (PAA/GO/Fe₃O₄) nanocomposites, ultrafiltration-adsorption membranes (UFAMs) coated with polydopamine (PDA) nanoparticles, amphiphilic nanoparticles with poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) cores, poly(ethyleneimine) (PEI), polyamidoamine (PAMAM) dendrimers, nano-NH₂-MCM-41 nanoparticle, nano-MCM-41 nanoparticle, silicate-chitosan composite, etc., which showed good results in removing various pollutants from water like heavy metal ions (Cd, Cr, Pb, Zn, etc.), organic pollutants like pesticides, PCBs, and various xenobiotics. They also showed effective removal of various harmful microbes like Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Bacillus subtilis. This chapter includes the various nanomaterial-assisted techniques for the removal of various pollutants from contaminated water bodies.