Nanotechnology: Review on Emerging Techniques in Remediating Water and Soil Pollutions

Environmental Pollution is becoming a global challenge in both developing and the developed countries, pollutants discharge from oil and gas industries and or agricultural practices continue effecting the health of human and other animal in an ecosystem in one way or the other. This necessitated the development of a techniques to clean up of the polluted environment. Remediation of pollutants relies mainly on using various techniques like physical, chemical and or biological methods for the removal of contaminants from different environmental media be it soil, water, and or air. These techniques have their own limitations as the toxicity of the degrading agents, time consuming and the fate of the environment after remediation matters a lot. Therefore, nanotechnology is gaining interest in remediating pollutions as nanoparticles are relatively cost effective, sensitive and selective and can be used as sensors to monitor toxins, organic contaminants and heavy metals in land, water and or air. The enhanced properties and effectiveness of nanotechnology-based materials makes them suitable for nano remediation. This review provides an overview of the nanomaterials: Organic based nanomaterials (Dendrimers), inorganic (TiO2, nZVI), carbon-based (Carbon nanotubes, (CNTs)), and composite- based materials) used in environmental remediation. These nanomaterials were reported to remediate different contaminants in the environment such as heavy metals, pathogens, pesticides, dyes, chlorinated organic compounds, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.