Carbon-based nanomaterials with multipurpose attributes for water treatment: Greening the 21st-century nanostructure materials deployment

Abstract

Nanotechnology is a top priority research area in a plethora of technological and scientific fields due to its economic impact and versatile capability. Among various applications, water treatment is considered among the most prospective utilization of nanotechnology, where a large number of nanostructured materials can remediate water using several different mechanistic ways. For achieving this, nanomaterials can be combined and modified with active moieties to develop different nanocomposites with structural diversity and unique physicochemical attributes. In addition, they have also been designed and integrated into membranes for improving water treatment performance. In this review, we provide an up-to-date overview of various nanostructured materials as nanoadsorbents, such as carbon-based nanomaterials, nanocomposites, and nanomembranes for remediating pesticide-based pollutants from aqueous systems using CNTs. Notably, nanomaterials are capable of efficiently removing environmental pollutants given their substantial surface area, high absorptive ability, and excellent environmental selectivity and compatibility.