Nanozymes for Environmental Monitoring and Treatment

Abstract

The development of highly efficient, robust and low-cost methods for the detection and degradation of contaminants in wastewater and atmospheric environment is very important for our environment and human health. Nanozymes have shown great potential in environment analysis and treatment owing to their low cost, high stability, multiple catalytic activities, and low environmental impact. Particularly, by connecting the unique physicochemical properties of nanomaterials and enzyme-like catalytic activity of nanozymes, a variety of nanozymes-based environmental monitoring and treatment technologies have been developed. Currently, a number of organic chemical pollutants, such as phenols, rhodamine B, aniline, methylene blue and xylenol orange, etc., have been successfully removed with high removal efficiency by employing nanozymes. Furthermore, by incorporating nanozymes into monitoring sensor, the detection limit for organic and metal ion pollutants have been reduced to the low nanomolar concentration range, which is environmentally more relevant than the micromolar or millimolar concentration generally offered by the traditional detection methods. This chapter reviewed the recent progress in the field of nanozymes-based technologies and approaches for environmental monitoring and treatment.