Chapter 1 - Nanotechnology driven solutions for treatment of tannery effluents

Abstract

Industrial effluents have posed a considerable threat to the quality of the water resources. The available conventional techniques are not sufficient to remove the potentially hazardous pollutants released by the industries. Tannery industry effluent often contains significant amount of hazardous metals and dyes which should be completely removed before releasing it in the environment. The bioaccumulation and biomagnification of the toxic metals through the food chain and their dramatic effects on human and animal health warrants development of more efficient techniques for wastewater treatment. More recently, nanotechnology has played an important role in developing water treatment processes for dealing with the tannery effluents which is presented in detail in this chapter. Nanostructured chitosan can effectively remove chromium, while catalytic properties of iron-oxide and magnesium –oxide nanoparticles are exploited for treating dye and chemical pollutants emerging from tannery industries. Even biogenic maghemite, silver and titanium dioxide nanoparticles are effective in decolourizing and degrading the tannery effluents. Nanofiltration technique has come up as an alternate and complementary technique for treatment of tannery based wastewater. Hence, nanomaterials can serve as excellent facilitators to improve the industrial scale effluent treatment processes in tanneries.