Nanomaterials and Their Role in Removing Contaminants from Wastewater—A Critical Review

Removal[aut]Niculescu, Violeta-Carolina of[aut]Miricioi, Marius Gheorghe contaminants[aut]Ionete, Roxana Elena fromContaminants wastewaterWastewater has become an important research area because the amount of available drinking waterDrinking water in the world continues to decline due to rising demand and/or long periods of droughtDrought. Furthermore, the chemical and petrochemical industry generates a wide variety of highly toxic residues. TreatmentTreatment of wastewaterWastewater is a controversial field in terms of environmentEnvironment protection. In this chapter, several nanomaterialsNanomaterial, which impart their unique properties, will be discussed. Among nanomaterialsNanomaterial, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are a form of carbon allotrope with a graphite-like structure, displaying various adsorptionAdsorption characteristics, as a result of the diameter, internal geometry, physical and chemical properties or the obtaining method. ContaminantsContaminants removal using CNTs needs further research, only limited studies being available and more practical applications are needed to confirm the results. Several other adsorbentAdsorbent nanomaterialsNanomaterial have been reported in literature. Among them, mesoporous materials have large surface areas and narrow pore size distribution, ranging from 20 to 100 Å, being suitable for liquid phase reactions because they favor the diffusion of the reactants to the active site. The adsorbentsAdsorbent can be very effective for adsorptionAdsorption of several types of contaminantsContaminants, such as heavy metals and different types of dyes. Recently, advanced research targeted the wastewaterWastewater treatmentTreatment by using nano catalysts, nano photocatalysts or membranesMembranes. The purpose of this chapter was to accomplish a comprehensive overview on the use of nanomaterialsNanomaterial in wastewaterWastewater treatmentTreatment. The renewed interest in the environmentEnvironment pollutionPollution has led to the development of effective models describing the performances of these technologies.